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You own a forum?

by Wide
50 replies
Lets have a chat about forums.

An active forum is easy to run, but they are by far the hardest to start.

Do some of you guys run active forums? Big or small?

How and when did you start your forum?
Have you paid for posts? How did it turn out and what services(url's) did you use?

Think most of us want to start a forum, or at least thought about it, but 99% is either closed or inactive.

Maybe some of you more successful forum owners would like to share your story
#forum
  • Profile picture of the author ReferralCandy
    I'd like to start a forum someday, focused on dedicated ecommerce merchants. I haven't quite found a community that I really like.

    Before I started working in ecommerce, I built a rather active Facebook community- for pleasure, not for profit. I think Forums require running starts- you need to be creating content that people are interested in, you need people to be signing up for your newsletters and mailing lists, people commenting on your blog. Once you've got all this energy going on, you can start a forum- start it in beta, invite your best and favourite users, seed it with conversation topics and questions and let it rip.

    That's my plan, that's what I hope to do for ecommerce. Want to see better conversations. I wonder if some of the big players have secret forums of their own, or if they correspond entirely on Twitter and email.
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  • Profile picture of the author ozlizard
    I had a forum on my photography site. Looked great and was starting to build up...until the Russian and Chinese spammers started sending their bots in.
    Was getting about 10 per day so had to shut it down in the end.
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    • Profile picture of the author Wide
      Originally Posted by ozlizard View Post

      I had a forum on my photography site. Looked great and was starting to build up...until the Russian and Chinese spammers started sending their bots in.
      Was getting about 10 per day so had to shut it down in the end.
      Ye, I know the feeling - bots are hard to get rid of
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      • Profile picture of the author GrowTutor
        Originally Posted by Wide View Post

        Ye, I know the feeling - bots are hard to get rid of
        I haven't had much of a problem getting rid of them. They still TRY but I haven't had a successful spam post in any of the forums that I admin in months.

        My newest forums aren't a problem because I'm still developing them and I haven't even started to allow indexing so it's almost invisible.

        The other forums, however, in a particular niche, were getting slammed before I became an admin. There are several things you can do, some more drastic than others. If you're trying to be all inclusive and not block/ban anyone then you'll always have bots.

        1) No guest posting.
        2) Moderate new users for 2-5 posts. If they do get by other anti-spam measures the members won't see it.
        3) Install RBL blacklist plug-ins. If they're known to spam, there's no reason to let them in.
        4) Block, China, Russia, Ukraine...at the very least. There are other countries that spam a lot too but those are the biggest ones that hit my forums.
        5) IF something still gets by the filters, IP ban the user and delete the post/thread (and everything else they ever posted) as soon as possible.
        6) Have a clear zero-tolerance policy.
        7) Block all proxies including tor.
        8) Disallow posting of links in profiles or posts for new members.

        Like I said, not one successful spam post in several months and only a handful of successful registrations, many of which I can delete before they even try to post based on country, email addresses or usernames. My moderation time has dropped dramatically.
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        • Profile picture of the author Max Greenflame
          Originally Posted by GrowTutor View Post

          I haven't had much of a problem getting rid of them. They still TRY but I haven't had a successful spam post in any of the forums that I admin in months.

          My newest forums aren't a problem because I'm still developing them and I haven't even started to allow indexing so it's almost invisible.

          The other forums, however, in a particular niche, were getting slammed before I became an admin. There are several things you can do, some more drastic than others. If you're trying to be all inclusive and not block/ban anyone then you'll always have bots.

          1) No guest posting.
          2) Moderate new users for 2-5 posts. If they do get by other anti-spam measures the members won't see it.
          3) Install RBL blacklist plug-ins. If they're known to spam, there's no reason to let them in.
          4) Block, China, Russia, Ukraine...at the very least. There are other countries that spam a lot too but those are the biggest ones that hit my forums.
          5) IF something still gets by the filters, IP ban the user and delete the post/thread (and everything else they ever posted) as soon as possible.
          6) Have a clear zero-tolerance policy.
          7) Block all proxies including tor.
          8) Disallow posting of links in profiles or posts for new members.

          Like I said, not one successful spam post in several months and only a handful of successful registrations, many of which I can delete before they even try to post based on country, email addresses or usernames. My moderation time has dropped dramatically.
          Hey, don't block us! Why not blocking all countries in the world just because of bad boys? Block the whole earth and accept only extraterrestrials to chat on forums.
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          • Profile picture of the author GrowTutor
            Originally Posted by Max Greenflame View Post

            Hey, don't block us! Why not blocking all countries in the world just because of bad boys? Block the whole earth and accept only extraterrestrials to chat on forums.
            I don't need to block the whole world, just the places that cause the most problems. I'm not going to waste my time, and expose my members to annoying spam, dealing with thousands of bots for less than a handful of legit members.

            Take China for example. In the two years that I've been on one of the forums, we've literally banned and/or deleted tens of thousands of spammers/spam posts...before we started aggressively blocking. During that time we only had a few members from China that weren't spamming. So while it's unfortunate that a *few* can't use the forum, it's better than exposing the rest of the community to tens of thousands of spambots. I'd rather keep my members happy and spam free than expose them to thousands of spammers and drive them elsewhere.
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            • Profile picture of the author Max Greenflame
              Originally Posted by GrowTutor View Post

              I don't need to block the whole world, just the places that cause the most problems. I'm not going to waste my time, and expose my members to annoying spam, dealing with thousands of bots for less than a handful of legit members.

              Take China for example. In the two years that I've been on one of the forums, we've literally banned and/or deleted tens of thousands of spammers/spam posts...before we started aggressively blocking. During that time we only had a few members from China that weren't spamming. So while it's unfortunate that a *few* can't use the forum, it's better than exposing the rest of the community to tens of thousands of spambots. I'd rather keep my members happy and spam free than expose them to thousands of spammers and drive them elsewhere.
              As you wish, I understand you. But it tremendously annoys when being in Ukraine you can't access tons of international or country specific forums just because in our country here are some dudes in the bushes bombarding the whole world with spam. There must be technologies invented to stop attacks.
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              • Profile picture of the author GrowTutor
                Originally Posted by Max Greenflame View Post

                As you wish, I understand you. But it tremendously annoys when being in Ukraine you can't access tons of international or country specific forums just because in our country here are some dudes in the bushes bombarding the whole world with spam. There must be technologies invented to stop attacks.
                If the government and providers would crack down on spammers that might help but, like China and Russia, since they know they can spam there...they do and that sometimes ruins it for everyone. Sad but true.
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    • Profile picture of the author WillR
      Originally Posted by ozlizard View Post

      I had a forum on my photography site. Looked great and was starting to build up...until the Russian and Chinese spammers started sending their bots in.
      Was getting about 10 per day so had to shut it down in the end.
      Shouldn't just close it down. There are plenty of things you can do to get rid of most spam without having to shut down your forum.

      It's a shame.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mogly
    Always wanted to start a forum... someday I will.

    But I probably will create it using my current traffic/subscribers, I think it would cost way too much to start with nothing but money + time.
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  • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
    Forums are a lot of fun once you get them started...you almost have to seed them with fake posts initially though or people see a dead forum and won't post themselves...
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      I have two forums. Since they are mostly for my SEO training class they have been easy to run (paid members only) but active ones can be a pain because of spammers.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mogly
      Originally Posted by Marketing Fool View Post

      Forums are a lot of fun once you get them started...you almost have to seed them with fake posts initially though or people see a dead forum and won't post themselves...
      This seems to be the most common method.

      But that really bugs me, because there really isn't a long-term slow/free way to build up a forum.

      You know how you can start a niche website/blog and make money over the long-term from SEO... if your forum starts small it really won't grow at all even over the course of years because it requires constant activity.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jared Hale
      True. Visitors will pass on an empty forum. I have found that by having an accompanying blog where people will ask questions on posts is a good way to open up forum discussions.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jared Hale
      Originally Posted by Marketing Fool View Post

      Forums are a lot of fun once you get them started...you almost have to seed them with fake posts initially though or people see a dead forum and won't post themselves...

      Very true.
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    • Profile picture of the author Justin Says
      Originally Posted by Marketing Fool View Post

      Forums are a lot of fun once you get them started...you almost have to seed them with fake posts initially though or people see a dead forum and won't post themselves...
      I completely disagree on the second part..

      If a community is there, they'll start talking by themselves. It's all about getting that initial traffic and hardcore forum posters.

      There are quite a few members here on Warrior Forum who have over 5,000... 10,000... 15,000 posts. Those are the type of people you need to find for your forum.

      They start the conversations, they continue the conversations, and you'll get credit for their hard work.
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      • Profile picture of the author hometutor
        I completely got rid of spam (so far) by charging $2.00 per month to post. I also use RSS feeds to get more content. The content goes out automatically to other social media bringing in more guests. I presently have over $175,000 members (not all posters) and thus far no spam.

        Rick
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        • Profile picture of the author writeaway
          Originally Posted by hometutor View Post

          I completely got rid of spam (so far) by charging $2.00 per month to post. I also use RSS feeds to get more content. The content goes out automatically to other social media bringing in more guests. I presently have over $175,000 members (not all posters) and thus far no spam.

          Rick
          Is this legal? I mean, you're harvesting RSS content for your commercial use...
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          • Profile picture of the author bwh1
            Originally Posted by writeaway View Post

            Is this legal? I mean, you're harvesting RSS content for your commercial use...
            He charges $2 for those who like to POST and not for being a member.

            There are free members as I see it so the RSS content can't be seen as used for commercial intend.

            That's my point of view, I'm not a Lawyer.

            G.
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            • Profile picture of the author IvoryPulse
              I'd like to ask - what do you think of arguments and tensions between your users? Are they good? Bad? Are you trying to achieve peace and calm all the time or you give your members some space to argue and let their frustrations out?
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              • Profile picture of the author Justin Says
                Originally Posted by IvoryPulse View Post

                I'd like to ask - what do you think of arguments and tensions between your users? Are they good? Bad? Are you trying to achieve peace and calm all the time or you give your members some space to argue and let their frustrations out?
                Arguments are my favorite, unless they get out of hand.

                Consider a gaming community...

                They want to fight about Halo and Call of Duty, debating which is better.

                Now when it gets personal.. that's when you get rid of them.
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      • Profile picture of the author IvoryPulse
        Originally Posted by Justin Says View Post

        I completely disagree on the second part..

        If a community is there, they'll start talking by themselves. It's all about getting that initial traffic and hardcore forum posters.

        There are quite a few members here on Warrior Forum who have over 5,000... 10,000... 15,000 posts. Those are the type of people you need to find for your forum.

        They start the conversations, they continue the conversations, and you'll get credit for their hard work.
        Agree with you.

        It's all about people. People are coming to forum to talk, to have fun, to live their virtual life. If they can't do that, they'll move on.

        Once the community is established, members are the ones who are leading the game, and forum owners can only slightly direct them in the right direction via moderation and rules.
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  • Profile picture of the author funkynassau
    I've had a few forums on yahoogroups, it's free and works well. You can keep out the spammers by setting newbies to moderated status til they prove they are not spammers.

    We did set up a bulletin board forum and it got over 50K worth of spammers in a couple of days. Security was tightened up, but in the end we closed it down, it was major aggro.

    I've had spammers on a wordpress forum too till I ramped up security. So for us it hasnt been all that successful.
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    • Profile picture of the author discrat
      Never had much luck with starting forums related to my blogs. It ended up that they were a time suck and not productive for me or worth it.

      Id rather concentrate on building relationships with people on my list and readers who comment on my blogs.
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  • Profile picture of the author Roger Fellon
    Unfortunately, I never had a luck with forums as well. I ran few in the past, but not now. Considering the fact I was a newbie webmaster back in the time, I think I'd start one in a near future. So I'll keep an eye on this thread.
    Also guys, wanna share amazing ebook about forum's monetization: “Monetizing Online Forums,” a Guide to Monetization Done Right, is Available Now (Free Download) | ManagingCommunities.com: Community Manager Blog

    Hope it'll help someone.
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  • Profile picture of the author Adie
    I created 2 forums before (2003 to 2007) about moneymaking online and MLM but both were sold for considerable amount of money. The first lasted for 3 years having around 15,000 members and the second lasted for the same time having around 6,000 members.

    During that time, it was easier to promote a forum. I just don't think the same thing can be said today where almost all niches have already a number of established forums. Competition is always tight. It did never ring my mind to run a forum again.
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  • Profile picture of the author PPC-Coach
    I have forums, I love them. Free ones have their place but paid ones are where the real stuff goes on because if you don't invest anything, you have nothing to lose.

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  • Profile picture of the author Cicak
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    • Profile picture of the author Mogly
      Originally Posted by rstrader1471 View Post

      I actually made a forum and officially launched it 2 days ago. It's something that would be quite popular as the forum offers free methods to earn money, from methods relating to CPA to Fiverr.

      We spent very little on advertising and have 170+ members. We spent a lot on our graphics and theme, as you can see from the logo below.

      If you want to see the theme or proof of our board stats, it's Revenue Forums
      Surprisingly.. your forum actually looks really nice, I really like the design.


      Gonna check it out.
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      • Profile picture of the author Cicak
        Originally Posted by Mogly View Post

        Surprisingly.. your forum actually looks really nice, I really like the design.


        Gonna check it out.
        Much appreciated! We put a lot of work in the theme as well as the logo for the forum, I'm glad it came out how it did and glad you appreciate it!
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      • Profile picture of the author Sandra Martinez
        I have a community. I opened it for a group of people who needed a place to hang out after being kicked out from another place.

        Some of them were very upset and did the initial recruiting calling their friends.

        It is not big, just crossed the 1000 members.

        About the content, you will need to write a lot at the beginning. I would write inspiring posts, and at the end added questions asking for opinion.

        Spammers are a pain. We do manual approval lately and ask several questions. It is very easy to spot them, because the answers are just not human. It is messy anyway, we have about 100 registrations a day, only 2 or 3 are real.
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        • Profile picture of the author Jared Hale
          That's actually a great idea. I started a forum off a blog on dealing with Canadian collection agencies and it's slooowly starting to pick up. I have let the spammers in though as they are creating dummy accounts for me and I just change their comments to match the forum. I mainly have a blog where I post statute of limitations information plus contact info for collection agencies. The blog gets a lot of legit questions which I give short answers for and then send them to the forum. As for spammer on the blog, all comments must be approved so I just edit them for what I want when the come in, then approve them! haha, may as well use the spammers for something.
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          • Profile picture of the author GrowTutor
            Originally Posted by certahub View Post

            That's actually a great idea. I started a forum off a blog on dealing with Canadian collection agencies and it's slooowly starting to pick up. I have let the spammers in though as they are creating dummy accounts for me and I just change their comments to match the forum. I mainly have a blog where I post statute of limitations information plus contact info for collection agencies. The blog gets a lot of legit questions which I give short answers for and then send them to the forum. As for spammer on the blog, all comments must be approved so I just edit them for what I want when the come in, then approve them! haha, may as well use the spammers for something.
            That's just switching from a spam post to a shill post.
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            • Profile picture of the author Wide
              Originally Posted by GrowTutor View Post

              That's just switching from a spam post to a shill post.
              A shill post? Sure why not.

              He change the content of a spam-post to make it relevant to his forum (probably have to rewrite the hole thing). He can then use his normal account to add even more valuable content to the post.

              This is actually an easy method to get activity to a new forum. He takes advantage of the spammers by converting a crap post into something usable.

              And we all know.... Google loves content.
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              • Profile picture of the author GrowTutor
                Originally Posted by Wide View Post

                A shill post? Sure why not.

                He change the content of a spam-post to make it relevant to his forum (probably have to rewrite the hole thing). He can then use his normal account to add even more valuable content to the post.

                This is actually an easy method to get activity to a new forum. He takes advantage of the spammers by converting a crap post into something usable.

                And we all know.... Google loves content.
                Shill posts are not ethical, it's not honest. :rolleyes:
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                • Profile picture of the author IvoryPulse
                  Originally Posted by datingworld View Post

                  I started one forum in April this year, Cannot say if it is successful or fail because it is still in the early stages but I would say it is not easy to get active users to it. I have 1250 members registered there now but only 60-70 members participate in the discussion, the rest just registered and are gone. [by the way the forum is about general discussion such political, cultural, social affairs etc]
                  I'd say these are not bad statistics for a fresh forum at all

                  Originally Posted by GrowTutor View Post

                  Shill posts are not ethical, it's not honest. :rolleyes:
                  Neither are spam posts
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                  • Profile picture of the author GrowTutor
                    Originally Posted by IvoryPulse View Post

                    Neither are spam posts
                    Spam posts can be deleted without changing them to shill posts and two wrongs don't make a right...
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  • Profile picture of the author NewParadigm
    The way to grow a forum is give it some social media network value. Your value proposition should be that the forum participants should want to recruit others to your forum for their own benefit (benefiting you).

    It's tough enough to get like minded people to a forum to exchange info based on a common interest, but your mission should be making it worthwhile for those people to want to connect with and bring in others.

    (ex.) a forum based on workplace vs. a social media forum based on specific workplaces(people wanting to connect w/ other workers in their company/building with forum functionality

    (ex) a forum for bartenders and waitresses vs. a social media forum for bartenders and waitresses to exchange info/stories with forum functionality

    The difference is:

    1: a forum is more about getting information, and perhaps contributing knowledge for some reward (pat on the back, helping others) It's a bit more one sided with no incentive to grow membership.

    2. a social media based forum where people are conditioned (facebook) to make connections, and a forum is a good way for information exchange within that platform.

    starting new forums for forum sake are nearly dead, starting social networks with forums as a feature are the future. We are social creatures and the desire to connect is stronger than the desire for information.


    it's a fairly subtle difference but it is huge in the mindset of motivating people to grow the forum(social network) for you.
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    • Profile picture of the author IvoryPulse
      Originally Posted by NewParadigm View Post

      ...
      starting new forums for forum sake are nearly dead, starting social networks with forums as a feature are the future. We are social creatures and the desire to connect is stronger than the desire for information.


      it's a fairly subtle difference but it is huge in the mindset of motivating people to grow the forum(social network) for you.
      This is something that none of the forum owners want to hear, but so true...
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  • Profile picture of the author AvusBlue
    I started a forum about 2 months ago with a business partner focusing on entrepreneurship
    Novum Dives Forums

    It is both of our 1st crack at forums and we are actually seeing a good amount of success. Month-to-date we have a 72.9% increase in traffic over July. And July was the 1st full month we were actually online!

    Starting a forum though requires an incredible amount of work.
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  • Profile picture of the author thedanbrown
    Ya forums are better left for paid members in my opinion. I just find it's easier, much less spam, quality of discussions is much better, and you can deal with less bulk.
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  • Profile picture of the author Max Greenflame
    If you're an expert in the industry you want your forum to belong to, start it offering free consulting. Let people start threads asking you something, others will join in. Make a lot of articles either. Protect it from spam bots, promote it.
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  • Profile picture of the author jeffsolochek
    Originally Posted by Wide View Post

    Lets have a chat about forums.

    An active forum is easy to run, but they are by far the hardest to start.

    Do some of you guys run active forums? Big or small?

    How and when did you start your forum?
    Have you paid for posts? How did it turn out and what services(url's) did you use?

    Think most of us want to start a forum, or at least thought about it, but 99% is either closed or inactive.

    Maybe some of you more successful forum owners would like to share your story

    Hey,

    I have a couple items. Go to Internet Marketing Consultant – Willie Crawford . He is a great marketer and I think he started around 1996. He gets a lot of people posting all the time. Now another marketer who got her start/training from Willie Crawford is Lynn TerrThen one last one is Joann Barnes. Hope all this helps.
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    Jeff Solochek
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    I also build blogs for companies and individuals

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  • Profile picture of the author micksss
    There is a lot of work involved... I bought an existing web hosting forum a couple of years ago that I'm selling because I don't have the time to manage it...
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  • Profile picture of the author HeySal
    I've got a forum that is getting one heck of a lot of traffic and sign ons, but doesn't have that large a number of regular posters. Many of those who do post regularly have met in real life now, and hundreds of people view it every day. That might not seem like much, but in my niche (rock and gem hunting) it's pretty solid. Also - I had 4 years of members when the whole php system on my hosting was torn to snot by a hacker and it took the better part of a year to get it going again, so basically had to start over from scratch just as it started really getting solid.

    The first time around I had to salt the forum with some friends who knew enough about, or liked rockhounding enough to make some decent posts. I had one or two dummy accounts for first posts, too. The need for those didn't last long, though, so I just trickled them out as members joined. The second time around, I just took whatever emails that I was able to retrieve of old members and told them we were up and running again.

    A good forum takes a long time and a lot of patience to build, but I've found mine worth every bit of work I've put into it. I've made great friends - brick and mortar friends, not just online, and I'm looking at being able to take part of the business brick and mortar in the next year or two, just as I had wanted to in the first place. I could have never even thought about doing so without that forum.

    Considering the work to start up, build, and maintain a forum, you need to decide if there is going to be a very solid use for it in the long run.
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  • Profile picture of the author datingworld
    I started one forum in April this year, Cannot say if it is successful or fail because it is still in the early stages but I would say it is not easy to get active users to it. I have 1250 members registered there now but only 60-70 members participate in the discussion, the rest just registered and are gone. [by the way the forum is about general discussion such political, cultural, social affairs etc]
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  • Profile picture of the author bwh1
    So do you guy's charge for the Forum or are those for free?

    I have one for clients and it's part of the bonus when they purchase.

    But we had plans to let non clients in for a fee. Possible? Don't know.

    It has only about 500 members and is in a very specific niche.

    So are Forums more a hobby or can you make money with them today in time with all the Facebooks and Pinterests out there?

    G.
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    • Profile picture of the author IvoryPulse
      My own forums are only hobby - there is no income except some advertisers that cover expenses and I'm not planning to change that one, at least for now. Still, if I had a specific forum with worthy information and helpful crew gathered around specific niche I believe I'd consider some membership fee for at least outsiders if not for all members.
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  • Profile picture of the author arkina
    I feel like it takes a ton of work to get an active forum going! I do think paying for posts is almost always necessary. I have used Fiverr and Pay Per Post. I have forums some really good posters o Fiverr and now I think I would probably only use those people if I had to do it all over again. Once you find good posters I'd stick with them and just double or triple pay them to become "more people" because good posters are hard to come by! Once you get just one or two real people who feel at home in your forum that is really all you need for it to finally take off. Some ways to get it more active is to host contests and such within it and to give out really good information or have hidden codes to be found within it for prizes.
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  • Profile picture of the author onlinesolutions1985
    It would be better if you make a forum just like this its a free sign ups so that many people will visit it everyday.
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