Forum building recommendations

In case you didn’t know, I’m a great lover of communities.

I used to be a member of around 100, and now I’m developing a portfolio of my own.

Shoemoney run’s a great show on Webmaster Radio called “Making Money from Forums”, and there are some great tips on there - not simply for monetising forums, but also for encouraging growth.

Special guest is Markus Frind, who runs some pretty big forums, including Sprintusers, an 80,000 member forum for mobile phone users.

There are some great tips in there for forum admins to help encourage growth:

1. Provide value - give new members a reason to join other than just post
2. Stay in touch - use newsletters to stay in touch with all members
3. Play fair - don’t be too strict, or too lax, with your rules
4. Keep in control - have a good set of staff to help moderate
5. Give freely - contests can be a great way to attract new members

There are some general tips on monetisation, too, and forum subscriptions are highlighted as a key method of generating revenues - though obviously you need to ensure you can provide something to make people want those subscriptions in the first place.

Looking at my own forums, it’s just a shame I’m not currently successful in any particularly commercial lucrative verticals. :)