MESKOS Forum Development Blog

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