Another benefit of becoming a trusted resource and community builder, is your content can be turned into speeches, discussions, round tables, whatever. Since then I’ve started using phpbb behind a dedicated host and database, do much more reliable. I had forgetten about this post here & when I recently recieved a notice & then re-read your advice, I saw the Invision Board. Community Forums 2 Acknowledgments Community Catalyst is a national advocacy organization that builds consumer and community participation in the shaping of our health system to ensure quality, affordable health care for all. Remember always be courteous, follow rules and don’t come across as too desperate whenever you promote your forum. Yaro this was quite detailed and honest, I am glad you mentioned taking it easy on family and friends. It’s not easy to generate free unique articles this way especially early on before you have a community running, so it might be necessary to throw around a little cash and buy some articles. Great information. Indeed, a community without an engaged audience, actively contributing, is no community at all. You need to stand out. Still curious why you decided to choose it for your next forum. However, it can be MUCH more effective than if it was just you making all the posts as your own identity. Itâs called Rootbuzz (not linked per the comment rules ð â let me know if youâd be interested in evaluating it and we can figure out something, demo account maybe? I did this a few times as a poster (just for fun, not to get rich!) I will get there soon once i apply the crowd mentality factor. The problem with forums is spam. Great stuff! But it’s okay I talk to myself offline too. I am starting a forum for software testers and read the comment by Hannahx. I want to build a forum like this. Thanks I’m thinking of setting up a forum but know it will be hard. from the event can be positioned online and continue to build the community. Your advice really helped me apart from the multiaccounts as i already have friends and relatives who use the site and that would seem odd. 2) stick to my own forum, upgrade it and then hope people stumble upon it. Do a google search for “free hosted forums” and see what you find. Wow – thanks so much for that information! You need to set up a server, using a hosting company such as BlueHost. Iâm afraid if real names to be used, they will shy away from using the forum as a platform to express their opinions/rants towards the management. You are right calvin. I really enjoy participating in forums and I’d like to have one, but it was the thought of that initial ‘ghost town’ phase, as you so aptly put it, that has kept me from going ahead and doing it. Jumpstarting a new forum is actually very-very hard. He deleted an entire forum section a few months ago and reposted the 25 on topic posts. It’s a catch 22 isn’t it! Thanks for heading me in the direction of this article Yaro. Yaro is a serial entrepreneur, blogger, podcaster and digital nomad. This “sneak peek” will make your friends and family feel special because you are demonstrating that you value their opinion so they will be more inclined to check out your site. Some good advise you have put up here. Best of all, you now have an audience that you can either leverage around your own products or services or start to derive revenue from through advertising, premium services or subscriptions etc etc. Recruit your mates and spread the word. It also helps if you know a little SEO but if not, you’ll probably get enough hits from your threads to see some new fresh faces drop in on you. wow great information getting my forum off the ground is no easy task but when it does get going it will be worth it, editing spammers out is part of the job of having a forum. Thanks very much Yaro, this is a push in the right direction and will help me not to just give up. But if you want something simpler Word press and php bb can Be integrate , but in today’s times the work would have to be in the content itself and possibly the forums may not be used as much. I’m always looking around for some advice on how to earn a bit online, and I think I’ve just found a goldmine of knowledge. You have a golden opportunity to build community when you can identify a group of people with similar identities or interests, who feel isolated from each other. I’ve been watching Yaro’s blog for tips to help my community ever since! Forums are a staple of the internet. This is the holy grail of forum building because your members became the best advertising tool you could ever have. I have created a forum in our niche. Its way more advance and different from managing a blog. Best wishes. For example, if your forum was about losing weight, a daily or weekly progress log would be a great way for members to record … The goal of internet etiquette (or “netiquette”) is to keep forums and other interactive sites organized and civil. How To Build An Online Learning Community. Thanks again – I’ll be sticking around this site for a while! But then i noticed that you have dropped your MTG paradise forum idea ? This helps me a lot… it’s interesting because I only found this site AFTER launching my own at RetailJourney.com. A million thanks Yaro. In addition these web builders cannot be that customized in terms of functionalities. I started a site four months ago and the main site is doing terrifically. I would love to have a busy and fancy looking forum community like the following forums which are amongst the best on the web IMHO: http://www.havenvideo.com a video (phpbb) forum community, http://www.abovetopsecret.com a conspiracy (not sure what software?) Then I want to p Forums . People started commenting and soon I got a lot of real participants. As a general rule, don’t be shy, tell everyone you know about your forum. However, the forum is a whole different story entirely. You are right, itâs not a question of software itself, but what is important, in my opinion, is to choose a solution which will fit for your level and your idea of expenses. Even though YoungActivist.com is sitting out there all alone with no members and very old content I still value the site. Thank you for these great tips! Regarding forum posts, I came across some software scrapers which will scrape and post the content to the new forum for initial activity and some old look. Thanks for this article, Yaro. It was impossible for me to set up a forum on my own. I run a web forum, it is Motivasy.com you can access it on http://www.motivasy.com the forum is about entrepreneur, motivation, positif thinking, self development for business n life skill. For example, you can have a "General Discussion" forum, a "Science" forum, a "Political Discussion" forum, etc. I’ve own a blog for almost 5 years now and I’ve been thinking deeply about opening a forum. Unfortunately, the team at Invision recently stopped offering a fully functional free version and the most current free version has limitations on numbers of users. What else I wanted to do was to require a minimum post count before these sales reps could post in this part of the forum, this way I’d have plenty of posts from members keen to solicit leads from the forum but PHPBB didnt have the feature (should have went vBulletin or InvisionPB) but PHPBB is free and you can upgrade to either of the latter later without losing your members/posts. Thank you so much for all the helpful tips. But only do it once in a polite manner. Before I land on a base, I need several key features which is the reason I’m not trying to cultivate my plain Jane GoDaddy forum going as they have no features! Right now, I’m testing different free forums to see which one will fit more to my needs. After you create a forum website, give users a reason to stay. 9 Best Forum Software Picks to Build an Online Community in 2020. All i have to work on now is to make the site homely so that people can actually feel like registering and participating. Great article Yaro – I just found this post after I wrote you about your recent choice to use VBulletin. Say you are inviting them to check out something you have created and that you want their valuable opinion before you officially launch. So beyond the obvious positives of creating an army of brand advocates, let’s take a look at the benefits of creating a successful community forum for your business. Forumotion offers free hosted forums with complete and customizable forum system. I really need the help because I don’t know what the heck I’m doing and the concept is really cool. I was looking forward to seeing prime examples of your handiwork ð. If people are going to spend time with you instead of relaxing or working, there better be a damn good reason. Build an online community today with Create A Forum. Relate your topics with relevant happening in the news, tell a story and stay focussed.