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Any forum success stories?

by wanderlust11
10 replies
Hi all,
I'm starting a forum and I have a decent niche but I know it's a slow process to gain members. I want to set goals to keep myself motivated but I don't really know what's realistic at the beginning.

Has anyone here made real money from a forum? If so, how long did it take to get things going? Did you use adsense or find other advertisers?

Thanks for sharing any advice or experiences!
#forum #stories #success
  • Profile picture of the author butters
    From my only experience I have had with forums is this. A family member ran a tourism website, he wanted to do a forum. There was no point slapping up a forum with only a few members on because no one will want to join and post. He started out and built up a list first so he could get an influx of visitors all in one go and get a community from the get go. Thats my only advice I could give you, get a list going and once the list is big enough, launch it to the list, he now has 114k members.
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    • Profile picture of the author wanderlust11
      Thanks for the reply butters. This is probably a stupid question, but what exactly do you mean by list? I thought about starting a blog or website first to gain an audience, but I guess I was hoping to find a shortcut... Probably not realistic though.
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      • Profile picture of the author butters
        Originally Posted by wanderlust11 View Post

        Thanks for the reply butters. This is probably a stupid question, but what exactly do you mean by list? I thought about starting a blog or website first to gain an audience, but I guess I was hoping to find a shortcut... Probably not realistic though.
        An email list... I suggest you look into list building on Google or in the search button above. First you want to captivate your audience with a blog / news / information, what ever the content happens to be. Secondly you want to get them into a list so you can start building up a relationship with them. Once you have enough traffic, enough people on your list, enough subscribers etc... then open a forum.

        There is no short cuts in this business, everything is hard work and patience, if you can't do both then theres no point starting.
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  • Profile picture of the author wanderlust11
    Oh ok, thanks for explaining! I've lurked on this website before and seen people talking about lists but never knew what it actually refereed to. I'm willing to put in the hard work and patience, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to start. If I pay for the domain and hosting to open a forum it'll force me to stay focused on the blog or whatever I end up doing to get an audience.
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    • Profile picture of the author butters
      Originally Posted by wanderlust11 View Post

      Oh ok, thanks for explaining! I've lurked on this website before and seen people talking about lists but never knew what it actually refereed to. I'm willing to put in the hard work and patience, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to start. If I pay for the domain and hosting to open a forum it'll force me to stay focused on the blog or whatever I end up doing to get an audience.
      Jump in, make the mistakes, start simple, doing a forum, right isn't simple. If you have no prior knowledge of how to launch one let alone a list then don't do it. Start with a simple blog, drive some basic traffic, make a sale or two in a niche. I recommend you search 30 day challenge (About The Challenge ‹ 30DC Inc) I think this is the site, this is generally helpful to newbies (You may need to sign up to access the site, its free tho, just an email etc...).
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      • Profile picture of the author wanderlust11
        Originally Posted by butters View Post

        Jump in, make the mistakes, start simple, doing a forum, right isn't simple. If you have no prior knowledge of how to launch one let alone a list then don't do it. Start with a simple blog, drive some basic traffic, make a sale or two in a niche. I recommend you search 30 day challenge (About The Challenge ‹ 30DC Inc) I think this is the site, this is generally helpful to newbies (You may need to sign up to access the site, its free tho, just an email etc...).
        Thanks again, I'll definitely check out the link. My only concern with making a list is that this niche isn't exactly sales oriented-it's more of a hobby/special interest. I know more about the forum aspect of it than the blogging, and I'm thinking the only way a blog would gain enough exposure is if I also had a facebook page... but maybe that could work.
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  • Profile picture of the author teeowl
    My advice is that you start a website and build your email list till it is more than 1000 subscribers. You would have been sending them helpful email content previously, so when you ask them to join your forum, they would be more responsible to join your forum.
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    2015 - my year of breakthrough!

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  • Profile picture of the author fpforum
    my very first site was a forum..It took over a year to really get the ball rolling and you need to think of doing a few things..

    1) Have good spam protection in place
    2) Consider hiring some posters..you need to get activity going
    3) Get tons of threads going yourself... Start as many as you possibly can

    It will be rough at first..If you keep going at it in a year or two you'll be probably be on your way.
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    • Profile picture of the author wanderlust11
      @teeowl, thanks for the advice!

      Originally Posted by fpforum View Post

      my very first site was a forum..It took over a year to really get the ball rolling and you need to think of doing a few things..

      1) Have good spam protection in place
      2) Consider hiring some posters..you need to get activity going
      3) Get tons of threads going yourself... Start as many as you possibly can

      It will be rough at first..If you keep going at it in a year or two you'll be probably be on your way.
      Did you build a list or have a website/blog first? Hiring posters is a good idea. Hopefully I can make it happen within a year but who knows, I've thought about doing this for a long time but it's intimidating to invest so much energy into something that might not work out..
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  • Profile picture of the author yestyle
    Banned
    Originally Posted by wanderlust11 View Post

    Hi all,
    I'm starting a forum and I have a decent niche but I know it's a slow process to gain members. I want to set goals to keep myself motivated but I don't really know what's realistic at the beginning.

    Has anyone here made real money from a forum? If so, how long did it take to get things going? Did you use adsense or find other advertisers?

    Thanks for sharing any advice or experiences!
    It's a long story about our webmaster forum www.WebmasterSun.com and I can not tell you all here how to develop it.
    Of course, we are earning good money from it although it has just estabplished since 2 years ago.
    but I have some advice for you.
    - SEO is the best way to gain quality members for your forum and you don't need to pay for posts.
    - Social Networks is a great way to get free and more traffic quickly.
    ......
    Any other ways you can learn from your friends or on this forum. Warriorforum is also a great forum to learn if you want develop your own forum.
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