Some Advice for Growing Your New Discussion Forum Community

Forums can be wonderful tools for users, especially if they are properly run and administered. I wanted to share some tidbits that newer forum administrators should find useful.

Some Tips for New Forum Community Webmasters

• Establish a set of rules and guidelines from the outset that your users need to follow. If you have your rules down in writing, it makes it much easier to point to something when someone messes up.
• Don’t be lax about enforcing your forum rules. One or two bad members can ruin a forum. If people have clear expectations and realize that you or your moderators won’t take crap from people, then you won’t have larger problems down the line.
• Always have a section devoted to “New Member Introductions.” This is important because you want people who are either new to forums or to yours in particular to feel welcome. ALWAYS make sure that people are welcomed with open arms to your site. Never let a post in this section go without a response. It helps build forum karma.
• When building a forum from scratch, always send a welcome PM or email to new members. This will become increasingly difficult as your site grows, but it will often inspire your new members to post where they may otherwise have not.
• Stimulate conversation by starting interesting discussions in your area of focus. Ask questions or start a debate about timely news or other information. Especially on newer forum sites, users will often be shy about starting a topic. If you start it, there is a better chance that they will get involved in a discussion.
• Always thank your members. Without them, your site would not work. I make it a habit to thank at least a few members every day for their participation on our real estate forums. With close to 6,000 members now, the site would be in no way as succecssful as it is without them. I show my thanks with little emails and messages, and my users absolutely appreciate it!

I hope these little bits of advice come in handy for anyone starting a forum out. Feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to help you out with any questions on forums. BTW - There’s much more to come about forums, so stick around!