What advice would you give to someone who is starting a forum for the first time

[Kane]

I don't consider myself experienced when it comes to running a forum and I am still in the learning phase but I have been running forums for about 5 years. The only advice I can give to someone trying to launch a forum for the first time is to keep your expenses low buy using open source software. If you start with premium software, your expenses will go high and you might not be able to run your forums from your pocket money for too long.

 

[Riberet19]

Using free forum services is a great advice since surely a person with no experience in forums will have to learn from 0 and it is always better to start and learn without having to pay or without having to pay a lot in case things do not go as he thought they could.

 

[Kane]

Unless you do not have issues with spending hundreds of dollars to maintain a forum, using free software can help you minimize your cost. If you want to just test it out, using free forum hosting platform will even save you from having to spend on domain and hosting

 

[Riberet19]

That is, it's better to start managing your first forum for free thanks to these software and then when you have more experience if you want you can start paying for better forum management software.

 

[Shortie]

The advice I would give to someone who was just starting out and creating their first forum would be to keep their costs low, use free open source software, even if that is just to start and to also remember that it takes time for a forum to grow.

Many people feel that when they open a forum it will gain traction right away and that is far from the truth. Hard work and dedication are always needed!

 

[Nomad]

The advice I would give to someone who was just starting out and creating their first forum would be to keep their costs low, use free open source software, even if that is just to start and to also remember that it takes time for a forum to grow.

Many people feel that when they open a forum it will gain traction right away and that is far from the truth. Hard work and dedication are always needed!

That's what I think. Running a forum is costly, you will have to pay for software subscriptions, apart form domain and hosting renewal. You will also have to pay for addons. Therefore, you need to try to keep your costs by using open source and other free resources. You can always upgrade anytime you want

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Create a strategy for your forum.

Set some realistic goals and keep them small. Make them achievable by doing some realistic work.

Don't shoot for the moon right off the bat.

It takes time and patience to get going.

 

[joelr]

I think the biggest advice that I would give a new forum owner - which is very different than the advice what I would have given 5 years ago or even 10 years ago, when all you needed was 'passion' and a willingness to host discussions - is to find an indispensable approach to your niche. This could be a service, a set of knowledge, an expert or authority (eg. yourself), etc. but a component that could not be found (nor replicated) anywhere else.

 

[Nomad]

If you were starting 10-15 years ago, all you needed was passion. If you had passion, you would be able to built something great. However, these days having passion is not enough, you need skills and a lot of resources. These days it is very difficult to get people active in forums because social media sites are offering better place for people. Therefore, you need to offer something better than social media, you need to find what works best for you.