MESKOS Forum Development Blog

Successful Communities don’t just happen.

Why Successful Communities fail.

Successful communities don’t just happen. The main reason why communities fail is because we can’t buy human raltions. They need to be developed over time, online communities need nurturing. They need attention. They need time, and they need commitment.

Many new forum owners are spending hundreds on paid forum licenses, new forum features, over-priced designs and more. None of these investments will develop human relationships. A paid forum license does not guarantee a successful forum, it’s about how much time and effort you put into your community.

If you want to develop a new online community, you need to work extremely hard on the project. Tending to a new community every now and then, or when convenient will not work. A new community should be thought of as a new born child. If it is to develop and be successful, it needs constant attention and nurturing.

Your thoughts

Why do you think most online communities fail? Why do you think many owners struggle to make their online community projects a success? Share your thoughts and opinions by leaving a comment below.

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The first 3 things a forum visitor notices.

First time visitors are extremely picky and if they find something they dislike, they will most likely turn away. This may even be as small as not being able to find the register link with ease. This is why you need to keep your forum appealing and the navigation of the forum simple.

In this article, i will cover the first 3 things a visitor will notice when visiting your forum. Ready to blow your visitors away?

1. Your Forum Design.

Before you jump down my throat protesting that “content is king”, let me remind you that the first impression and what a member first views is the forum skin/appearance. If a visitor dislikes the forum appearance, he will simply leave. As simple as that.

A quality forum design is significant for a forum when it’s struggling through its early stages of development.

If a visitor sees a default design, or one they have seen a hundred times before, they may well stick around for a bit - but you will have lost the opportunity to impress your visitor from the outset.

2. The content of your forum

Needless to say, if you have no content then don’t expect any members. If you have low quality content, expect low quality members. If you want fantastic, engaging and loyal members, you need to create fantastic and engaging content.

There can be no shying away from this fact - if you don’t create content, you will not create members. Why would anyone join a forum with no content? It would be like sitting in an empty room all by yourself. Much better to go next door where there are people to talk to, right?

3. Your Board Statistics

When a visitor scrolls down your forum, they will definitely take a look at your board statistics. This piece of information contains your forum post/thread count and your total member count. If your forum only has a couple of hundred posts and a few members registered, it won’t be encouraging for guests. Why would a member join a ghost town?

So remember, try your best to improve your total post count by posting quality content and slowly develop your member base over time.

Your Thoughts

Do you disagree with the points? Have i missed anything? Share your thoughts and opinions by leaving a comment below.

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Members love to Follow the Leader

Have you noticed that your members imitate those who they admire or find inspiration from? Take advantage of this and set a good example, then watch your members follow the leader.

The background of Following the Leader.

When your forum is new, member #1 (usually the forum owner) is the most valuable member. The owner is the one expected to post up new content, solve disputes, welcome new members and actively interact in the forum discussions. New members are not too sure about the atmosphere (the personality) of the forum, so it’s your job to develop it and display to them how it is.

The most influential stage of the Forum.

The most influential stage of the forum is the establishment stage. Your members are clueless about the personality and atmosphere of the forum, so it’s your duty to show it to them. They see you as a leader, they try to become you by inspiring off your online-personality.

Example: It can be as small as this, if your forum signature was laid out nicely. Eg.

/ forumadministrator

Slowly, you will notice members becoming more and more influenced and adding short text signatures like (forummember, forumnamemember etc). We’ve all seen it happen before.

How to take this opportunity for our advantage.

We now know that members unconsciously follow trends and the personality of the forum (and the owner), over a period of time. How can we take this opportunity for our advantage?

Lets say we are developing a forum based around gaming; in this case, we want to create a strong gaming atmosphere. How can we do that? When welcoming new members, you can include small gaming related questions to emphasis the forum concept. Slowly, your members will follow this trend and also do the same.

Every now and then, forum owners ask me “how do i make my members more active?”, “how do i encourage them to post?”, “how do i motivate my members to write more quality posts”. The answer is, lead by example and let them follow. If you want you members to post more, lead by example and make new posts daily, Want your members to write more quality posts? lead by example; dedicate a couple of minutes to finalize your post(s) by fixing any errors, spelling mistakes etc.

Remember, members don’t follow your trends/behavior overnight. Give it time, constantly emphasis the forums personality and trends. Once your members become familiar with the forum, you will notice how they mimic your behavior.

Your Views and Inputs

Have you seen members ‘follow the leader by mimicking your behavior’? or have you joined in with the community and followed different forum trends? Share your points of views and experiences by leaving a comment to this entry.

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A Community is like a Beautiful Woman

Your forum community is just like a beautiful women, why? Keep reading.

Keeping her Interested.

To cut a good and long lasting relationship, you need to grab her attention and maintain her interest. This can be done by experimenting. You never know what is best for your community if you never test it out. Try new things, escape your comfort zone, have an open mind because who knows what reward it can bring. Just remember, don’t let your relationship go dull and stale.

Treat her well and you will be rewarded.

Everyone wants to be treated well, especially your women. She wants to be respected, listened to and appreciated. Same as your community, your forum needs an ongoing attention and your members also need to be respected and listened so they feel a sense of value within them selves.

Remember, if you don’t treat your women well, you will obviously see a breakdown in your relationship. Same as your forum, if you don’t treat your forum members and the community well for a period of time, it will come to a devastating conclusion.

Beauty must be seen to be appreciated.

There can be a women with the looks of an angel but if her beauty is not seen, then it’s wasted. Make sure your community looks great and that you have spent enough time advertising and spreading the word of your forum. Make sure your design is original and memorable, so your visitors admire your forum.

Beauty needs a personality.

Yes beauty is a bonus but without a wonderful personality, the relationship may become awkward or uncomfortable. Same as a forum, every community has their own unique personality (their own set of rules, their own ways of creating humor, their own ways of running a forum) - develop it, and it will differentiate your community from the competition and lure in new members. Being beautiful isn’t everything.

You won’t always get along.

Yes, arguments and disagreements are always evadable within a relationship. No matter how beautiful she is, it can not be avoided because everyone is different in their unique ways. This is normal in all relationships, same as an online community.

99% of forum owners find it difficult and slowly give up after not making much progress in recruiting new members and visitors. Don’t give up! It’s normal because all forums have to start from somewhere.

We also may have one or two arguments with members or staff, this is where you need to stop, think again and keep your cool. The continuous arguing will affect the relationship and your community.

Jealously.

Yes, this may have happened to you once in your forum development years. You’ve banned a member and they revenge by creating a similar forum (which usually fails) because their simply trying to annoy you or give you competition. Prepare for jealously, it’s only a small part of your forum history.

Time for your input.

Like always, please leave your thoughts and opinions on this article by leaving a comment.

Sorry but i’m a male and i based the analogy on a a beautiful woman. Hope it’s understandable.

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Do you make these common forum mistakes?

Building an online community is hard work. For a forum to be successful it needs quality content, dedicated members and daily interaction. All these necessities are linked (triggered by a chain reaction). Put it this way, without quality content, there will be no dedicated members. Without dedicated members, there will be no interaction. As simple as that.

Read the rest of this entry »

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