Anyone run a mainstream forum
 

I posted this elsewhere but wanted to get some feedback from GFYers. Hopefully you guys have some input on this or have run mainstream forums...Personally, I haven't and and have limited knowledge to gauge the success or potential success and my patience is not a virtue :(

It's been about a month now for a beta we launched, our preliminary market pump was 3 months prior on our current sites and also did a bunch of viral campaigns before hand so had traffic ready to go and built in (the site is a mainstream/satire forum) so it was fairly easy to brand with our current sites. We generated and created an acronym that is fairly well accepted now.

So as it stands in addition to current internal network links, we have pr7+ static links (non-paid for) coming in which are solid sources and giving about 50% of the traffic, the rest is from viral campaigns and SE where our SERPS are hitting 3-5 on average. Adsense approved and 3 other tough approvals came though (because we're pure satire and have offended)...google bot, yahoo, msnbot etc. are hitting it fairly well, Baidu has been spidering also and hitting so the Chinese traffic is converting as planned with current sponsors.

So everything is good, but here is the problem that I see, the threads are getting good views, 300-700 per thread...but registrations are very low, after 1 month around 60 - this I'm thinking is very slow and posting is slow. But the site is converting and making a small profit. We haven't implemented the PPC either (straight revs). So the place looks dead with the exception of a few posters. I want to pretty much revamp it into a static model which I'm more comfortable with....but not knowing the cycle of forum profitability I am hesitant.

So the question...is 1 month premature to make any changes on a forum model?

Forum or traditional static driven content (given this situation)?

Also link-ins and partners would not care either way you take it (same topic and relevancy)

- create sub forums that require membership (VIP threads, etc)
- contests always make people post more
- ranking based on the amount of posts a user had made
- special features for members with at least X posts (more PM storage, images in sigs, rank, access to special content, etc...)

Create a bunch of fake accounts and talk to yourself for about a month.. the more activity you have in your forum, the more interessting is it for new users to sign up. No one signs up to some dead beat.

I'll have the VIP/Reg thing implemented...thanks for the input on that. I am very impatient when it comes to this and given those numbers even more so. I'm overseeing the branding of it which is most likely the reason that these numbers seem shitty compared to static projects.

Oh and I have like 3 guys talking to themselves right now :1orglaugh

I am about to say scrap it all and make a pedobear site.

I've had one going for just over a year, and to be honest, it sucks the life out of you unless you can get other people posting regularly. Ask friends, family (depending on the nature of it of course) and yes, create a dozen or so fake accounts. It helps if you have multiple peresonality disorder so you can remember which fake member is who.

I have thousands of members now, but still only a hundred at best regular posters. I think the general rule of thumb is out of ever 100 signups, 95% will never post anything, 4% will post once or very infrequently, and one will post regularly.

Basically hammer the social networking angles as hard as you can until it drives you nuts, and if the site doesn't start standing on its own legs after a year, ditch the forum.

I'm glad I persevered, mine is now self maintaining more or less, and earns me enough to have made all that initial hard work worthwhile.

GL :thumbsup

ps. not sure I like the sound of pedobear......WTF? :1orglaugh

Damn that is perseverance, good to hear that it paid off also

I think the main thing that is in question is effort to payoff, although a bulk of the work is done by the team, it is as you say draining. the return on the time invested in comparison to return in another direction is the biggest thing to me...

oh and pedobear is just a funny friendly bear guy, satire joke cartoon :1orglaugh

pooost the url of rht forum!!!!

its real hard for a forum to take off, takes a few months and u need fake writers

We have monthly contests. Win VISA gift card for signing up. Win Amazon card for posting.

the 'fake posters' thing can also be duplicated by giving people important jobs like making them moderators of sections etc. Then they take pride in it and bring in their friends. If you have a few people with a few accounts each it doesn't take long for conversation to take off.

It also really depends what the subject of the forum is ... people might arrive there because they want to look at something on your site, but some subjects just won't encourage conversation no matter what you do.

hit me up if you want to link swap: http://www.aussiecelebs.com