5 Proven Techniques to Build a Profitable Web Forum
You may have heard that having a web community is a great way to
increase sales, customer loyalty and word of mouth for your web
business. In fact a web community itself, if large enough and
targeting an affluent demographic (or one that advertisers like
to target), has the potential to bring in revenue. Commonly
people use a web forum as the centre point for a web community.
However building a popular forum is no easy task and requires
patience and dedication.
Start at the beginning: Which forum software should I use?
Perhaps the least important variable, but certainly a vital
aspect, is the forum software you choose. I came to settle on Invision
Board as my favourite forum of choice. Over the years I
became very familiar with Invison Board functions so it would
take a lot for me to switch to different forum software.
Unfortunately the team at Invision recently stopped offering a
fully functional free version and the most current free version
has limitations on numbers of users. I'm a strong supporter of
Invision so I still recommend using the free service and then
paying to upgrade once your board is large enough to warrant it.
Chances are with your forum being that popular means you can
justify the fee anyway.
The other top quality free forum out there is phpBB which is the open source
offering. I haven't used this myself but with Invision no longer
being free I can see this being the main player for all small
business forums. I see this forum everywhere so I think you can
take that as a strong endorsement.
Another popular choice, especially for large companies that can
afford the fee is vBulletin. This seems to
the professional forum of choice for those with the moolah to
afford it. I only played with this forum many years ago when
they had a limited use free version (in fact it was the first
forum I ever installed). It's definitely a top forum with a
great design, but you pay for it.
As I said which forum software you choose is not too important.
You are going to have to learn to use at least one, so choose
the one that satisfies your criteria and then get playing. If
the idea of installing forum software is daunting to you then I
suggest you look at the installation services most forum
businesses offer. You can pay a small fee and one of the staff
or community members will install the software for you. There
are also remotely hosted forums where you don't install any
software at all on your server but instead use one hosted by the
forum company. Note this often either costs money or is
advertiser supported so you might have some icky banners or
other ads streamed across your forum. I recommend you host the
forum on your own server because you get control, ownership and
better search engine benefits.
How to attract and keep members
Regardless of which forum software you choose the hardest part
of building a community is getting members, and members that
stick around. Obviously your forum should be targeted to your
business niche or target market if it's not a business site.
Picking the niche area you target is vital for success, and the
individual forums you create for your community must clearly
represent the purpose of your community. However this is where
some lessons can be learnt. At first when you start building
categories and individual forums you might get carried away with
all the interesting forums you can create. You dream of your
users lapping it up and talking away about every little area of
interest you can come up with. This is the first major mistake
you can make. You end up creating way too many forums that have
no topics in them. Even if you do manage to bring some quality
visitors to your site, they hit your forum and see an empty
place and then move on. No one feels compelled to join an empty
forum.
But you may ask then, how can you go from having an empty forum
to one filled with topics when no one wants to get things
started? It's a catch 22 isn't it! The number one concept to
remember is that people bring in people. If visitors see topics
and posts and discussions they are interested in they are more
likely to contribute. It's hardest early on when you first
launch but there are some tricks you can do. Here are the key
pointers I've learnt to get passed this early stage of a
ghost-town forum.
1. Think minimalist when building categories and forums
Look to about four forums maximum to start with, even less if
possible. If you find yourself coming up with many different
forum subjects, try and group them together under one forum.
Then in that forum you can create individual topic posts to
cater to each area. That way you are creating conversation
starters and making the place look a little busier. As the
forums grow and you have enough individual entries to start
breaking down forums you can justify creating new ones. You can
then move the existing topics into the appropriate categories
and the forum doesn't start off empty.
2. As the owner you must keep contributing
This might seem obvious, but it's hard to keep motivated when
week after week you create new topics and try to stimulate
conversation and you seem to be talking to yourself. Personally
I get the most excited when I first build the forum, thinking of
all the great topics that can be discussed. Unfortunately once
everything is done it does take some effort to keep writing
fresh content. The only rule I can give is stick to it. Get into
a routine of making a few posts everyday.
Expanding on this idea...
3. Create some fake personalities
This may seem a little dishonest, but a little trick you can use
to stimulate conversation is to create a few different member
accounts each with their own personality. Basically you create
some fictional members and get posting. You can even have full
forum conversations between your characters (just don't go
insane!). Only you know which characters are fake. To everyone
else it appears as if your forum is getting popular.
I had a friend take this idea so seriously that he kept profile
notes on each character such as age, sex, personality type,
occupation etc so whenever he made posts he made sure to get
into character first. It's like forum acting.
This method again takes dedication because you need to keep
logging in with each character and making new posts. However it
can be MUCH more effective than if it was just you making all
the posts as your own identity. It looks sad when the webmaster
is chatting away to no one, but not quite as sad when Jim,
Katie, Chris and Jane are having conversations even if they
really are all controlled by the webmaster.
4. Publish content
There are sites available such as Ezine Articles that
have articles you are allowed to publish on your site provided
you follow their terms of use policy (which usually means you
publish the articles exactly as they are and keep all links
intact). The authors of these articles make them free because
they get good promotion if their article is widely published.
Note that because these are free articles you will most likely
find that you are not the only site out there with the content.
If you want unique content you may have to pay for it and
consider hiring columnists. With MTGParadise.com we had such a
good community that many of our members were happy to write
articles and reports for free. They enjoyed writing and seeing
their article published. It's not easy to generate free unique
articles this way especially early on before you have a
community running, so it might be necessary to throw around a
little cash and buy some articles.
If you can find content relevant to your market and distribute
it to your community you have a good way to stimulate
conversation and make your forum look a little busier.
5. Recruit your mates and spread the word
This is harder than you'd think. If you are like me, most of my
closest friends are too busy or not really the forum community
types so they won't help out much. Generally though you should
have a few friends that are interested in the topic of your
forum and they might help out with a post every now and then.
Don't put to much pressure on them and be thankful for anything
they contribute. You don't want to get carried away trying to
get your forum off the ground that you lose your friends because
you constantly pester them to make posts or join up.
As a general rule, don't be shy; tell everyone you know about
your forum. But only do it once in a polite manner. Say you are
inviting them to check out something you have created and that
you want their valuable opinion before you officially launch.
This "sneak peek" will make your friends and family feel special
because you are demonstrating that you value their opinion so
they will be more inclined to check out your site.
You can put a note in your signature file in your email about
your new community, make a few posts at newsgroups that focus on
your target market and hit some other complimentary (not
competitor) forums to advertise your new forum. Remember always
be courteous, follow rules and don't come across too desperate
whenever you promote your forum. All this will come across
negatively and harm your chances of new members signing up.
Don't give up
The most important tip I can give you to grow your community is
to not give up. Even though YoungActivist.com is sitting out
there all alone with no members and very old content I still
value the site. While I didn't achieve the success I wanted off
the bat, I haven't given up and hope that one day can I can get
the site growing again.
Sometime after months, maybe even years of making new posts,
adding content and spreading the word, you will find that your
forum has grown to have a few hundred members, a handful of
devoted regulars and no longer requires daily injections of
posts from you. You reach a critical mass and your community
moves forward without too much intervention from you. This is
the holy grail of forum building because your members became the
best advertising tool you could ever have. Word of mouth helps
the site to continue to grow and attract new members. You can
start creating new forums with confidence that they won't be
empty for long. Best of all, you now have an audience that you
can either leverage around your own products or services or
start to derive revenue from through advertising, premium
services or subscriptions etc.