Some Tips For Your Forum

[Deleted member 44219]

Here are some tips for your forum if your new to having one:

1. If you don't know programming, don't be scared to use a forum creator. You will not be considered a professional but it's reasonable.
2. If you don't have any growth, try looking for other sites or forums to advertise(like this website) if it doesn't work out try looking for alternative ways to grow such as inviting friends or advertising on social media.
3. Make sure your forum is something that people want to talk about, people will most likely stay on it a little longer if it's something fun to talk about. Like video games or entertainment. This will keep users on it for longer.
4. Make sure your forum is actively moderated and has a lot of administrators, this will keep it safe and users will be happy for it.
5. Be happy if your site only has about 2 - 4 users on it, it's a start and we all start somewhere. Look at me, I just started a forum today and after advertising it, it got 4 users(3 Guests and Me)
6. Try adding new features, changing layouts and colours and hosting events on your forum, this will keep users on your site a tiny bit longer.
7. Try having a whiteboard, sheet of paper or a small office in your house to keep working and having active statistics of your forum. This will give you info about user staying-time.
8. Don't start a business once starting a forum, this is useless and should only be done if your forum has about 2000+ users and a constant stream of revenue.

This is all of the advice I could offer. Hopefully it helps some of you as most of these things, I've done. Happy forum hosting. 😀

 

[Folk Artist]

Thanks DanS for some good info about having and maintaining a forum- I would do some research to decide on an appropriate niche, earn a following and then create something that isn't being served by somebody else in the forum world.

 

[Bryn]

For the first two things you mentioned, let me say a few things... although free forum hosts do seem "unprofessional", somehow Jcink is more "professional" when it has the advanced things that others don't have, such as anti-spam tools through the Moderator CP. Second, you can also look at SEO and maybe make use of social media to give it more growth (like a Twitter, which is what I'm using for mine and it had helped in a few occasions).

Other things is that if you are to run a forum, you are pretty much required to be more "unique" than all others out there, as in what unique perks could you offer and also work on a unique "niche" and if you can, a "sub-niche". Regarding staff, a good team of them would do but you don't wish to have your forum be over-staffed.

Those are just my two cents 🙂

 

[Nomad]

Here are some tips for your forum if your new to having one:

1. If you don't know programming, don't be scared to use a forum creator. You will not be considered a professional but it's reasonable.
2. If you don't have any growth, try looking for other sites or forums to advertise(like this website) if it doesn't work out try looking for alternative ways to grow such as inviting friends or advertising on social media.
3. Make sure your forum is something that people want to talk about, people will most likely stay on it a little longer if it's something fun to talk about. Like video games or entertainment. This will keep users on it for longer.
4. Make sure your forum is actively moderated and has a lot of administrators, this will keep it safe and users will be happy for it.
5. Be happy if your site only has about 2 - 4 users on it, it's a start and we all start somewhere. Look at me, I just started a forum today and after advertising it, it got 4 users(3 Guests and Me)
6. Try adding new features, changing layouts and colours and hosting events on your forum, this will keep users on your site a tiny bit longer.
7. Try having a whiteboard, sheet of paper or a small office in your house to keep working and having active statistics of your forum. This will give you info about user staying-time.
8. Don't start a business once starting a forum, this is useless and should only be done if your forum has about 2000+ users and a constant stream of revenue.

This is all of the advice I could offer. Hopefully it helps some of you as most of these things, I've done. Happy forum hosting. 😀

I don't know programing. However, I created a forum once. I chose MyBB, I failed at customization, then changed to PhBB and then again to SMF. I was not satisfied with the look and I could not do better, therefore, I gave up on forum scripts and went to wordpress and used wordpress forum plugin. The design was basic, therefore, I gave up an idea on creating forum. You say "use a forum creator." Please explain this to me.

 

[Deleted member 44219]

Here are some tips for your forum if your new to having one:

1. If you don't know programming, don't be scared to use a forum creator. You will not be considered a professional but it's reasonable.
2. If you don't have any growth, try looking for other sites or forums to advertise(like this website) if it doesn't work out try looking for alternative ways to grow such as inviting friends or advertising on social media.
3. Make sure your forum is something that people want to talk about, people will most likely stay on it a little longer if it's something fun to talk about. Like video games or entertainment. This will keep users on it for longer.
4. Make sure your forum is actively moderated and has a lot of administrators, this will keep it safe and users will be happy for it.
5. Be happy if your site only has about 2 - 4 users on it, it's a start and we all start somewhere. Look at me, I just started a forum today and after advertising it, it got 4 users(3 Guests and Me)
6. Try adding new features, changing layouts and colours and hosting events on your forum, this will keep users on your site a tiny bit longer.
7. Try having a whiteboard, sheet of paper or a small office in your house to keep working and having active statistics of your forum. This will give you info about user staying-time.
8. Don't start a business once starting a forum, this is useless and should only be done if your forum has about 2000+ users and a constant stream of revenue.

This is all of the advice I could offer. Hopefully it helps some of you as most of these things, I've done. Happy forum hosting. 😀

I don't know programing. However, I created a forum once. I chose MyBB, I failed at customization, then changed to PhBB and then again to SMF. I was not satisfied with the look and I could not do better, therefore, I gave up on forum scripts and went to wordpress and used wordpress forum plugin. The design was basic, therefore, I gave up an idea on creating forum. You say "use a forum creator." Please explain this to me.

When I say 'Forum Creator' I mean a tool that sets up a forum for you in just a few minutes. For my forum, I used CreateAForum: https://createaforum.com/

There are some other forum creators like ProBoards. These tools just set up a default forum and then you can customize it however you like. Hopefully this gives you a better understanding of what a 'Forum Creator' is. 🙂

 

[Deleted member 44219]

For the first two things you mentioned, let me say a few things... although free forum hosts do seem "unprofessional", somehow Jcink is more "professional" when it has the advanced things that others don't have, such as anti-spam tools through the Moderator CP. Second, you can also look at SEO and maybe make use of social media to give it more growth (like a Twitter, which is what I'm using for mine and it had helped in a few occasions).

Other things is that if you are to run a forum, you are pretty much required to be more "unique" than all others out there, as in what unique perks could you offer and also work on a unique "niche" and if you can, a "sub-niche". Regarding staff, a good team of them would do but you don't wish to have your forum be over-staffed.

Those are just my two cents 🙂

Yeah, there may be some more 'professional' forum hosts that give you access to different features that others don't have. I settled on CreateAForum, which I'm fine with. And you are right about staff. You don't want a ton of staff on a small forum. Thank you for providing extra tips.

 

[Deleted member 44219]

Thanks DanS for some good info about having and maintaining a forum- I would do some research to decide on an appropriate niche, earn a following and then create something that isn't being served by somebody else in the forum world.

I'm glad to help. I hope that your forum is successful. If you're stuck or don't know how to code then here's a list of forum hosts that I've found:

• https://createaforum.com/
• https://www.proboards.com
• https://www.boardhost.com

Those hosts should get you a forum up and running in a few minutes. You can do the rest such as moderating and customizing. Good luck!