If you are tasked with managing a forum, congratulations to
you. If you find yourself weighed down by mundane management
tasks, you are not alone. Let's examine some essentials to
help you run an effective and vibrant message board community
without the hassles of micromanagement.
1. Find a forum you like and stick with it. Yes,
not everyone will be using vBulletin or one of the other
wonderful PHP or ASP message board sites. If you like EZBoard
or if you like making your own site up with PHP open source,
then do it and stick with it. By now you know the pitfalls
of the particular sites; can you really afford to regularly
change to the latest and greatest technologies? Probably
not, unless your site is already generating plenty of income
through Google AdSense or similar types of PPC advertising.
I am not saying to never update your site, rather weigh the
costs of whether your site has to have a certain site or
feel to be successful. Even ugly sites can prosper, witness
Craig's List!
2. Find moderators who want to moderate. Not everyone
who volunteers to moderate a particular forum on your message
board is fit for the task. Some will sign up and then not
moderate; better to go without a moderator then to have a "name
in place." Keep your standards high and only the best will
volunteer.
3. Envision long term. Unless you plan on rapidly
growing your forum and then "flipping" it in a quick sale,
you are better off looking at keeping your site for many
years. Yes, in the land of the internet, everything changes
so rapidly; still there are forums that can and do thrive
the longer they are online, with proper management of course!
4. Reward your core constituency. Chances are your
site is dominated by a small group of people who post regularly
and are generally most helpful overall. Consider having a
private forum viewable only to them on your site. Out of
this group will likely come your moderators; run contests
for this group only. Find advertisers to fund the prizes.
5. Ignore the squeeky, vocal minority. Yes, there
will be the small amount of people -- usually less than 10%
of your members -- whose demands on your time far exceed
what is normal. They are the ones who want extensive hand
holding and technical assistance...if they would only read
previous threads or pay attention to announcements, your
problems with them would be resolved. As much as it cuts
against the grain for some administrators [heck, you are
all about helping people, right?], you must cut them loose.
You need not do it directly, but by not promptly answering
their questions they will either figure things out themselves
or move on.
6. Be well funded. Have a treasure chest or Paypal
donation box on your site to welcome contributions. Run banner
ads and join a successful PPC program. Find an advertising
plan that works well for you. Seek grant money if your site
is geared toward helping raise awareness about a particular
health or social issue. You want to reap some monies from
your site and you should pay yourself for your hard work.
Not all forums are meant to succeed on the internet, nor
should they. The successful sites are well managed and positively
impact members and guests far beyond the internet. If you
have one of these sites, congratulations and good management
to you!
Matt runs two successful forums which can be viewed at http://aviationemploymentboard.net/forum and http://corporateflyer.net/forum
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