Ways to make your forum a hit!

[Jeremy]

Jeremy submitted a new Article:

Ways to make your forum a hit!

Ways to make your forum a hit!

You can always have a forum but that doesn't mean that it's going to be a hit! If you want your forum to be a hit you might want to do some of these things before hand.

1. You might want to have staff selected from other sites before you open your board. It's ok if a guest comes by and finds the forum and registers - all that means is that your forum is inviting. Have you staff to start threads to make it more "welcoming" to guests with more chances to post in topics they like.

2. Keep your board open to suggestions! If the board not open to suggestions that what is a guest going to think? They don't have any suggestions? It's a forum for the people and should be built by the people over time. Do some of the suggestions but don't do too many at one time: It could cause members to get confused and get lost.

3. Have rules set up. Rules need to be set up to keep a forum orderly and get better rankings on search engines like google. Don't have your moderators be harsh about telling a member to follow the rules. Don't tell them that they'll get banned after they do something because this could intimate guests to not want to register because of a wrong move they might make.

4. Too many forums are a bad thing. If you have too many forums it could be intimating to guests. Not knowing where ot post a thread or things like that. Keep it simple with general forums and than expand when you get more members.

5. Hacks and Codes should be added before you open if your going to plan on opening with them. Don't disable something because it's going to be a hack later on. Let members personalize their profiles and post bit. When you add the hack have an announcement saying that you have to buy this feature and that!

6. Affiliates are a great way to get members. Affiliate with boards while you still are building but ask them to only add it after you open. Don't just limit yourself to forums about the same thing your own as many members and guests like other things and would like to see friendly faces at other forums that are linked with you!

7. Contests, contests, contests! Do contests at all times. It gives members the chance to win features on the forum/website. If you don't run contests than your forum could be boring and would just be a place to talk with no perks once so ever! Have features that can only be accessed by winning a countest: Like an arcade - Limit it to a group called "Contest Winners" and...

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[jappyx]

Nice read! Well done!

 

[cpvr]

Excellent read
Thanks man.

 

[Digit]

nice advice. Thanks

 

[SoulMinded]

were can you find hacks n so forth....like the money code hack cuz i can't seem to get that to work on conforms yet it seems to work fine with invisions....

 

[MissMoke]

I don't get # 13.

 

[italks_community]

Some cool ideas to make it big.Good i like the article.Thanks.

 

[lighter]

thanks for sharing

 

[angisson]

Thanks for sharing, I am taking what i read and try to apply to my site (when it is back up)

 

[Demojames]

Too many forums are a bad thing. If you have too many forums it could be intimating to guests. Not knowing where ot post a thread or things like that.

Good Point,

I just started less than a month ago and I had way too many forums and a couple of members were e-mailing me on where they should post things. After reading this post I decided to pugred and lost some post but I think it will be worth in the long run, currently they are "hidden" and I will bring them up if the topics get more post in different sections.

Thanks for the great information!

 

[shanda]

I agree that contests are a great thing for a Forum. We had a photo contest not long ago and it generated more interest in our Forum than ever before. It was a huge hit and people had the opportunity to vote for their favourite so they returned over and over to see who was winning, to enter their own photos for consideration and in the end to find out who the winner was. Now they are asking for more contests and we are happy to oblige

 

[uglued]

Excellent post .. i learnt most of it the hard way ... i was running a forum since more than a year and never stopped by on sites such as these for information

seems like i am at the right place finally

thanks.

 

[DivineDevil]

Nice article mate..I have just started a new forum and hope of getting good tips. This will help me a lot.

Thanx for the article.

Regards,

Da Devil.

 

[Jeremy]

Thanks Guys! (late reply. LOL)

I don't get # 13.

It means don't load up on profile fields!

 

[diypeter]

a very interesting post well done

 

[silversalmon]

Great read. I think the admin of the site I mod. on took all of this and implemented it. Let me tell you, it has grown 1,000 members is less than a year

 

[Jesse]

great read. Lots of excellent advice in there

 

[Jeremy]

Great read. I think the admin of the site I mod. on took all of this and implemented it. Let me tell you, it has grown 1,000 members is less than a year

Glad it helped someone!

 

[whisper]

12. Funding could always be a problem. If you don't have enough money your hit forum could go down the drain. So add features that are accessable to only people who donate. Give their postbit a little flare by adding contributer and giving them a bigger avatar or special forums to talk in!

That's a darn good idea.

 

[Teknomancer]

1. How do I run a contest for a cartoon forum? I have some ideas, but I'd like to hear more.

2. How can i give prizes and such? I'm in India and I don't own a credit card and shipping stuff PHYSICALLY to US etc. would be DAMN expensive and suppose they don't get the goods etc. (I can't risk all that and it would get very complicated). And besides I'm running a free site Giving away expensive prizes will be out of my own pocket