I'm 16, I own a forum - How to?

This post will probably be moved by the moderator as it doesn't pertain to PIPS.

However, this Wiki may help you out.

How to Create and Maintain a Successful Forum: 7 steps - wikiHow

I'd say you have a pretty good start...

Alexa Traffic Rank: 564,244 Traffic Rank in US: 62,684

You already have over 450 members, maybe you could provide some "incentive" read - freebie to anyone who promotes you Forum on their blogs or websites.

Good luck.

Allen

Just a thought, try getting someone on fiverr to promote to FB and twitter for $5

I did it for my fan page and it worked out well.

Marilu Nieto

In forums the big issue is building a community. Visitor come for the info and stay for the community

As time goes by and more posts are made, many of your threads will be picked up by the search engines. This will only mean more and more traffic and much more members.

Your forum looks really nice. Great job.

Looks nice. Add it to forum directories. Good luck.

goto hip hop networking events and get the word there with flyers,banners,etc.

thx guys......

thx guys.......

Nice forum. How do you plan to earn money with your forum other than Adsense? Or will Adsense be your primary way to make money?

I like the forum design, logo and everything nice work.

Forums are really difficult to maintain and with spam away.. They are just as good as membership sites IMO...

I would add it to my signature on other RELEVANT forums as a short to medium term way to get exposure. Just get involved in conversations on other hip hop forums.

Your forum mostly target is all young generation . Its good for you to start with social media which is a free resource for you to generate and build your fans and change them to your members.
When it grow until do have new thread all the time , you might come with some simple giveaway like free itunes gift card that related to your blog and bring all your fans over your forum .

Make sure your forum do have hot topic all the time so it wont be like a dead city .
You might target girl or ladies as well which they likely gossip and talk non stop about celebrity which might help your forum grow.

Wow buddy, you're young and have spirit!
here, (with love) some tips - how to

First find a Forum niche
I know you will have heard this all over the web and you may have taken it with a grain of salt, but it's very important. Facebook wasn't created overnight as a worldwide social networking site; it started as a small university website which grew.
Choosing a name is important and a good name might encompass your niche within it. Other websites might tell you that it's very hard to expand from a niche however this is not true. The only way to build a good size website is to start with a niche and slowly expand the fields you cover. For instance a fishing website I built started off as just a local community fishing website, focused just on fishing my region. After about a year it started to grow quite quickly and a few members joined from outside of my area. It was at this stage I decided to change the name and also to make it country wide. I did this because I listened to my members and from this I found that people from outside my region wanted to join however they had the impression that the website was just for local people. I changed the name of the website to a general name which could encompass countrywide and it worked very well. Any website I have started has always focused on a very narrow niche of people.

Start to Socialize in your forum.
Once you have your niche you need to start writing topics about it, in an attempt to saturate your niche with keywords and to also attract people to read, join and chat. In the beginning I suggest you create about 5 - 10 phantom members and use them to leave comments on your posts (no one like to be the first to join a forum). I also recommend your posts you make are similar to blog posts in length and detail. This will make anyone reading, appreciate your knowledge and also they will join if they perceive you have value to offer.
If you keep at your forum and continue to update it with at least daily posting, in the short term, then you will definitely get members. You may find that it just looks like you have a lot of posts created by yourself and what I recommend in this case is to create phantom members and make some of the posts come from them. This will give the perception to a visitor that there are a few people chatting on this forum. Once you get real members joining then you can slowly drop them off the radar. I don't normally do this however whenever I have it worked very well. Some people might see this as a deception however the way I look at it is that you are trying to get people to join and the reality is that no one likes an empty forum - it's also temporary.

Style your forum.
Spend sometime learning about how you can give your forum a unique feel and look. At a minimum you need to add your logo to the forum!

Treat Forum members as if they are worth a million dollars.
You need to welcome every member who leaves a comment on your introductions board. Make sure you come across polite and helpful, always ask them you will answer any questions they have. Never leave a question unanswered and always post an answer as soon as possible. If you don't answer there post they will never return and it's never good to leave a question with 0 replies. If you come across a member who fights other members it is worth banning them so that it doesn't cost you other members. But remember an Admin or owner should try to stay as neutral as possible.

Does all this sound like a lot of work?
well.. that can be repelled with this question
Is a forum right for you?

The best part is that you can look at creating a forum is..
later when the forum gets more and more popular

Hello Kevin,
As a matter of curiosity. How did you manage to spend $500 on your forum? This is not a smarty question. Was it some kinda special programming or what? And, which forum platform did you go with?

I'd like to put in my two cents, but I admit I'm clueless. I have had two or three forums but talked myself out of them because of the work involved to keep them running. The promotion side is a pure pleasure, however. I'm sitting right now on not one, but two of the greatest domain names you could possibly imagine for a money making forum...but my lack of forum programming smarts and the time I'd have to invest just puts me off.

Norm

SEO, have people promote it, buy ads on worldstarhiphop?

do some SEO then you see more visitor.

good start, but you have to start thinking of finding ways to make big money on your forum.

Offer something unique- something other forums/sites aren't offering... Hey, maybe contact a few up and coming artists and tell them that you'll promote them on the forum for FREE if they keep an active account. Having a "celebrity", even a local one can do a lot.

Also, send out a message to your current members and announce two contests:

1. Whoever invites the most people to the forum in June wins a free kindle fire (only $200).

And

2.The user that stays the most active and added the most relevant, helpful stuff to the forum in June, wins a kindle fire.

Stress to everyone that there are only 400 members and that such a low number gives them a HUGE chance to win.

Now you have people inviting all their friends, while adding good, relevant content and you're only spending like $400 by purchasing two kindle fires. Chances are your ROI with that $400 is going to be much higher than it would be if you spent it on PPC/PPV


Those are just two ideas, but that's personally what I would try first.

Carpe Diem,
-Ryan

WOW nice forum you have there Kev

Nice forum mate. I see a lots of post too. Looks like there is lots of participation.

I'm looking to sell this forum, anyone interested?

Hey bud,

I think this should help you: How to start up and profit from your OWN forum - with no expenditure

It's by Harvey Segal a veteran marketer.

Good luck!