MESKOS Forum Development Blog

Successful Forum Tips

Successful Forum Tips
Here are some additional tips on developing a successful forum. These tips do not guarantee a successful forum, it all depends on how well you integrate them into your community.

• Make sure you know your topic. Do not create a forum which you don’t know much about. Don’t leave topics or discussions empty, Google for answers if needed. I’m not saying you need to know everything about the topic, know enough to create discussions, join in etc.
• Unique hacks and features. Many forums are successful due to its unique features. Additional hacks and mods for a forum can really bring a new atmosphere to the community and may even spike new interests from the members. Such as: Currency (money), banks, stores etc really boost up activity.
• Not too many topics. (In response to my Establishment Tip entry). Yes, do have topics when you open your forum but don’t have pages of them and left empty. The fewer the topics the better because it will condense your content and appear more active.
• Affiliates. Affiliates are highly useful for new forums. Affiliate with related forums to build up your member base and name. Don’t affiliate with forums which have relevance to you or your wasting your traffic.

Good Luck again everyone.

Written by
Michael. W
© MESKOS Forum Development Blog 2008
Redistribution of this article will be violating copyright laws.
Please contact me if you would like this doc. submitted to your forum/website.

Tags: creating, forum, successful, tips

Do Not Overwhelm Members/Visitors

Do Not Overwhelm Members/Visitors
Definition: Creating an extensive amount of forums. Keep Reading my beloved Subscriber

When we establish a forum (especially if you are new to forum development), we will naturally create an overwhelming of forums to satisfy your visitors and members.

Why?
You believe that with the number of forums to cover as many topics as possible, is beneficial. In most cases, if your forum is new, ITS GOING TO KILL IT.

Example: If your working on a general chat forum, don’t create a forum for every aspect of ‘chatting’. Keep it general - media, technology, music, digital entertainment etc. (This applies to new, ‘coming-soon’ forums).

A good idea is that you create a sub forum if you would like to break it down into a popular sub category. (Gaming -> Counterstrike). This will accumulate all the sub-category and the parent forum posts together and may develop an active forum atmosphere.

Why shouldn’t we create an extensive amount of forums? It satisfies a broader audience.
True but with the overwhelming of forums, new members may encounter the following:

• Emptiness(Ghost town) - usually forums with an overwhelming of boards for their members are empty, which discourages new members and may fail to success on its opening.
• Confusion - new members may find it difficult around the forum.

Because i love my Blog readers/subscribers so much i interviewed a number of people, this is what they had to say about an overwhelmed board.

• “Like I’ve made the wrong choice in joining.” - Dylan Tawse.
• “I feel like I’ve walked into the desert. My will to post is dry, and I don’t see rain on the horizon.” - Jake LaJeunesse.
• “Unwilling to contribute, looks too empty” - Stephen.
• And the list goes on…

Well, thank you for reading, hope this helps. Leave a comment if you can and hope to see you next time

Written by
Michael. W
© MESKOS Forum Development Blog 2008
Redistribution of this article will be violating copyright laws.
Please contact me if you would like this doc. submitted to your forum/website.

Tags: fail, forum, members, opening, overwhelm

Establishment Tips

Establishment Tips
A few useful tips to take into consideration and practice when opening your forum.

Yes, this is a blog, which means the tips/points are from my perspective and my opinion.

• Do you have the time and effort to sustain a successful forum?
• Will you have the funds to purchase sufficient investments for your forum? (Even though finance is not needed for a forum (if your using a free forum software) but it is quite useful when advertising your message board.
• Do you have the sufficient skills in forum management to take up informational, decisional and interpersonal roles as an admin?
• If you don’t have the sufficient skills, will you consider a partnership with a friend which you can share the work load and different roles of an administrator.

Those were just some general questions you should honestly answer yourself.

Lets begin on the successful forum opening tips:

• Always have topics opened when opening a forum. How?
  » Register multiple accounts and start posting topics in every forum. This is to encourage members to interact within the forum.
  » Gather a few friends to start topics and reply to them.
  The purpose of this technique is to eliminate the idea of the forum being empty/isolated or un-active. Remember! don’t open ‘lame’ topics, make them interesting.
• Have a competition/contest when you open your forum. Why? This will motivate members in interacting with the forum and other members. Some ideas may include: Posting Contest, Referral, Writing Contest, Designing Contest etc. (Try to develop some unique ideas yourself).
• Appealing Appearance. An essential. Your forum appearance must ‘WOW’ the visitors. If you have poor look, who will register? so remember, always have a A+ skin/theme/design.

I hope this short article will help you on a successful forum opening.
If you have any queries or questions, please reply to this entry and i’ll do my best to help you out.

Written by
Michael. W
© MESKOS Forum Development Blog 2008
Redistribution of this article will be violating copyright laws.
Please contact me if you would like this doc. submitted to your forum/website.

Tags: establishment, forum, help, opening, success, tips

Creating a Successful Forum

Creating a Successful Forum.

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General

Lets begin with “why do you want to create a forum?”. Lets do some research.

1. Will you dedicate enough time and effort to create a successful forum?
2. Are you entering a solid competition market?
3. Will you be able to convince members to join your forum and leave others?
4. Do you really need to run a forum?
5. Is your idea unique? Will it be useful?
6. Am i re-creating another forum with a different name? (Same services etc)

You should take a few moments answering those questions yourself honestly.

Recently and in the past i have seen an overwhelming number of resource boards coming into play. If you are deciding to create a resource forum - don’t. Only if you have the knowledge and experience to out-run some of the largest resource boards out there, including the IFSZ.

Key Aspects of a Successful Forum:

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Skin. The skin is perhaps one of the more significant aspects of a successful forum. You will notice, most of the active forums have a nice looking skin. I do not encourage you to find a whored skin which is seen on all IPB, IF etc forums but a unique theme which suits your forum genre. Take a few days searching for a suitable skin and working on the forum layout.

Content. Content is the heart of your board. Members join for content, your resources and your discussions. That is what the forum is made up of, text.

When creating a forum, who joins a board with one member online and only 100 posts? This is where you need to work a little. My suggestion is gather friends who you know will dedicate their time to post around your forum and help you create some activity. Keep topics detailed and interesting which will motivate members to discuss. Example: If you’re creating a Prison Break forum don’t start topics like, “How did you find Season 1?” take some time and extend the topic so more discussions can be made, Eg. Discussing the plots, twists, backstage etc.

Once you have around 10-20 dedicated posters, your forum is on a steady level.

Staff. Staffing, many new forum owners find promoting a large number of members to work for them is beneficial. Do Not. If your forum is small, only have 1-2 staff members max. Overloading teams just creates confusion. Honestly, you won’t even have the time to keep track of each associate.

Why is my forum so slow? Members are always thinking beyond expectations. Gaining 1,000 members is not a daily experience. Members are lucky to even gather 500 dedicated members within a whole year. So don’t give-up if your forum is slow, an active community takes to to develop. Keep promoting, open daily topics for new discussions, motivate members to post with recognition, prizes etc.

Innovating. When your forum is on a stable level, you should then decide, “Can my skills be taken further?” Shock your members, bring new services/discussions etc to your forum. To keep your old members dedicated, changes are needed. Imagine visiting the same forum(s) everyday for a year, how boring would it be?

Now its your turn, after reading this article, i hope it has helped you decide if you should create your own forum and if you do, the tips i provided.

Written by
Michael. W
© MESKOS Forum Development Blog 2008
Redistribution of this article will be violating copyright laws.
Please contact me if you would like this doc. submitted to your forum/website.

Tags: development, forum, success, successful, traffic

Welcome to MESKO’s Development Blog

Welcome to my forum development blog. I will be posting up regular documentations and tips on establishing to managing your message board.

Hope to see you soon,
MESKO.

Tags: development, forum, message board