Any advice on starting a forum community? (for freelancers/consultants)

[sn95leen]

I've decided to launch a forum for freelancers and consultants. I'm a web developer, so the software/hosting part of it is trivial. Getting the community started and growing is what I could use help with. My questions are as follows:

1. If you have experience running a forum, how did you get that initial spark of interest? Where did you find your early members?
2. How did you advertise your forum in the beginning?
3. How long did it take before the community became self sufficient?
4. How bad was spam, and what did you do to help that?

If it matters ... I have a long history as a web developer. I'm still extremely passionate about what I do, even after 12 years. My motivation for starting a forum for freelancers and consultants comes from believing that starting your own business is one of the most fulfilling decisions you can make. I want to build a community where like-minded individuals can share thoughts, experiences, and opinions w/one another, as well as welcome new comers who have recently made the decision to start their own business. There really aren't many, if any, good forum resources for freelancers or consultants to turn to right now.

 

[Planter]

vbulletin.org

has all your answers, plugins, mods, add-ons, forum software, etc.

 

[sn95leen]

Thanks, but the software side of things is already handled. I've edited my original post to include a link to the forum.

My primary questions are in regard to getting early membership going.

 

[Admin]

Admin Zone Forums - Discussion Forums & Resources for Online Community Administrators

Enjoy

 

[Jimmysidecarr]

Compelling relevant content.

List of the top ten motivational books you found to be most helpful to you.

These books should be considered a most read because.......

For each one.

Etc.
Got to give them a good reason to show up.


:beer:

 

[VRYALT3R3D]

Ditch whatever you are using for vB. Seriously. vB is that much better

 

[BladeX10]

I created a forum in late 2005 just to have something to screw around with on my side time.. I mainly used it to get better at photoshop so i started making website and forum templates and images with renders and such. Eventually the community blew up and was one of the biggest forums of the proboards.com software in 2006 and as a 16 year old, i had no idea how to properly manage the forum. Eventually it got hacked and had all our posts deleted and half our member base was deleted, rebounded from that pretty well and made a steady recovery. Pressure was still too much for me so i stepped down from creator/admin and passed it to my co admin and he got it hacked again and we never bothered to continue. That was a hectic time of my life lol.

My advice is to mainly do word of mouth and try to build a small community, Its your job to always have new topics and dicussion going. I had 15k posts in a matter of 6 months because of constantly adding discussion. When you get a guest, you want them to have a reason to sign up and they wont do that if the forum appears inactive. Its very time consuming at first. Eventually youll have enough active members doing the posting for you and you can sit back and enjoy the forum as a member.

 

[LogiWorld123]

i came to this website because it was cross posted on a few sites i was already on. the people make the forum, not the software side.

as jimmy said, give people a reason to stop playing farmville and start posting.

 

[sn95leen]

Good stuff thanks guys.

Creating relevant content is spot on w/my early goals. I'm starting to build a front end site to the forums w/additional content. E.g. In addition to myself, I've already lined up a few writers I know that are interested in writing blog articles. We all have strong opinions on freelancing and consulting, so I hope new visitors will find the content compelling.

I'm also going to start making the forum known via word of mouth - personal emails, letting my clients know, mentioning it on other forums, etc. I've also linked to it on my company site, and have a couple friends that have done the same.

Ditch whatever you are using for vB. Seriously. vB is that much better

Would you mind sharing 1 or 2 specifics? Are you referring to the look/layout, user management, spam control features, etc.?

I created a forum in late 2005 ... Eventually the community blew up and was one of the biggest forums of the proboards.com. My advice is to mainly do word of mouth and try to build a small community, Its your job to always have new topics and dicussion going.

Did you only rely on word of mouth? If so, what types of places did you use to spread the word? Did you rely on any paid advertising?

 

[SonicDTR]

Ditch whatever you are using for vB. Seriously. vB is that much better

+1

If I come across a forum that uses some garbage forum software(anything but vb basically), I might poke around a bit, but never sign up and stay.

 

[sn95leen]

Ditch whatever you are using for vB. Seriously. vB is that much better

+1. If I come across a forum that uses some garbage forum software(anything but vb basically), I might poke around a bit, but never sign up and stay.

Sounds like I should give VB a shot.

If it means anything, the forum I'm using is Simple Machines Forum; it came hghly recommented. Here's a Comprison Chart, and when researching forum software, it was the most popular free choice. The price tag of VB isn't an issue though.

Regardless, if VB is preferred or most popular, perhaps that'll lessen any friction for new visitors to become aquainted w/the forum. I didn't give this any thought, b/c personally the forum software doesn't matter that much to me. Great to hear it does to others though.

Thanks!

 

[VirtualSVT]

Content Generation. You can't always rely on your users to provide enough content in the beginning to keep the site flowing and interesting.

Also. Rules. Keep them. If you let the forum be free then keep it that way. If you change the way a site is moderated drastically expect moral to drop.

 

[sn95leen]

For those that favor vBulletin, as a user, would you mind providing specifics?

I started researching vBulletin earlier today, and I'm not liking what I'm reading. In particular, the new version is getting bad reviews. You can view a demo here.

I'm not opposed to using vBulletin, despite the negativity I'm finding and that I don't like the new version, but choosing which software to use is an important decision, so I just want to understand it a little more.