General What forum topic do you think would go well?

[Haim]

I applaud you for at least thinking about the potential size of your audience before launching.

One thing I've seen is that forum admins, especially the hobbyist ones, make one fundamental mistake: they begin their community too early. They don't do their research. They dont define their unique competitive advantage before launching. They don't build an audience of a group of followers. They think launching forums is pretty themes and installing plugins, but the real work and the hard work is figuring out your community objectives before you even launch.

Define your path to success before you even begin, and you will be more successful than 90% of other people.

Also never forget: you need an audience first. Start out with a blog and see how that goes. Give it a month or 6 and see if you start to receive some engagement. Build up some followers. Try it out on Discord or Reddit and see where it takes you. And if you’d really need a forum.


All those subjects you list aren’t the most easy ones to build up. Many competitors have come and go.

Amazing! You cleared my head. Do you have any tips on how I can start researching or testing the amount of target audience? For example.. How can I know where to get the target audience? I'm from Israel and the truth is that our forums are almost completely off the internet. I just want to open a forum on a certain topic that I like (even though I'm 28 haha) and invest in it time, money and whatever is necessary. When I read and understand what you say, I actually understand that I don't have the most important thing: an audience.. I would love advice and tips please 🙏

 

[Cedric]

Amazing! You cleared my head. Do you have any tips on how I can start researching or testing the amount of target audience? For example.. How can I know where to get the target audience? I'm from Israel and the truth is that our forums are almost completely off the internet. I just want to open a forum on a certain topic that I like (even though I'm 28 haha) and invest in it time, money and whatever is necessary. When I read and understand what you say, I actually understand that I don't have the most important thing: an audience.. I would love advice and tips please 🙏

Everywhere. Make a subreddit, facebook group or discord server. Join similar niche communities and get to know the folks inside those communities. Network, share, find some friends with similar interests. Make your presence aware on those channels. Systematically direct them to your blog, forum, server, group, etc. It's hard work, don't be easily demotivated. The key is to be consistent, and never give up.

But don't forget. It's very hard work. And there will be times that voice in your head will repeat to give up. Don't give in.

 

[Haim]

Everywhere. Make a subreddit, facebook group or discord server. Join similar niche communities and get to know the folks inside those communities. Network, share, find some friends with similar interests. Make your presence aware on those channels. Systematically direct them to your blog, forum, server, group, etc. It's hard work, don't be easily demotivated. The key is to be consistent, and never give up.

But don't forget. It's very hard work. And there will be times that voice in your head will repeat to give up. Don't give in.

I thought it would be easy for me .. I was wrong 🤣 Thanks! I will try to investigate

 

[Cedric]

I thought it would be easy for me .. I was wrong 🤣 Thanks! I will try to investigate

I know it's a lot to take in, and easily taken to demotivate yourself. But if you enjoy forums, creating them and you have a passion for the niche, go for it. Enjoy it. It won't be easy, but you can enjoy the process. Don't expect too much, so your disappointment is easier to bear. That's what I do.

 

[Haim]

I know it's a lot to take in, and easily taken to demotivate yourself. But if you enjoy forums, creating them and you have a passion for the niche, go for it. Enjoy it. It won't be easy, but you can enjoy the process. Don't expect too much, so your disappointment is easier to bear. That's what I do.

you're absolutely right! I'm looking for places where I can explore the issues a bit, it will also be difficult to find serious and good people

 

[Cory]

I love these topics and for a long time I have been thinking about opening something like this...

If you love the topics at hand, then you already have a piece of the cake cut out for you. When you have a passion or drive for something it can be hard to stop pursuing that passion or drive. When you feel this way about something it's much easier to make a forum about it and try and stick to it as much as possible. Sometimes finding new members can be tedious, but it's doable by reaching out to the proper audience and promoting as much as you can where possible. You're already posting on a forum that has promotion avenues available for you and that's a good first step to take. If I didn't have a passion for coding, my current board would either be offline or just a dud.

 

[Haim]

If you love the topics at hand, then you already have a piece of the cake cut out for you. When you have a passion or drive for something it can be hard to stop pursuing that passion or drive. When you feel this way about something it's much easier to make a forum about it and try and stick to it as much as possible. Sometimes finding new members can be tedious, but it's doable by reaching out to the proper audience and promoting as much as you can where possible. You're already posting on a forum that has promotion avenues available for you and that's a good first step to take. If I didn't have a passion for coding, my current board would either be offline or just a dud.

Maybe I will really build something and promote it, which is called taking a risk

 

[Cory]

Maybe I will really build something and promote it, which is called taking a risk

It can be risky if you start putting a lot of money and effort into the project, but you could always start small and build your way up from there. There are free forum hosts available that you could "start" on and later on if your forum starts to become more successful and you have that passion and drive to always attend to it, you could move "up" in the forum world.

 

[Haim]

It can be risky if you start putting a lot of money and effort into the project, but you could always start small and build your way up from there. There are free forum hosts available that you could "start" on and later on if your forum starts to become more successful and you have that passion and drive to always attend to it, you could move "up" in the forum world.

I have been in the forums for over 10 years and I must admit that you reminded me of things I had already forgotten. Thanks! Now I have to find people. I even thought about a browser game

 

[Haim]

I would be happy for more opinions You can also open a browser game

 

[Ravenfreak]

Cory is correct, you don't have to start on a paid platform or start with paid hosting, you can always dip your toes in on a free platform like Jcink. They allow you to make database backups so if you're truly passionate about your community and want to move to paid hosting, you can! Also how popular is this browser game you're wanting to make a community for? If it's super popular, you can reach out to the subreddit if it has one, and the Discord and or social media communities based around the game too.

 

[joelr]

Amazing! You cleared my head. Do you have any tips on how I can start researching or testing the amount of target audience? For example.. How can I know where to get the target audience? I'm from Israel and the truth is that our forums are almost completely off the internet. I just want to open a forum on a certain topic that I like (even though I'm 28 haha) and invest in it time, money and whatever is necessary. When I read and understand what you say, I actually understand that I don't have the most important thing: an audience.. I would love advice and tips please 🙏

For each of your topics (eg. Harry Potter), join existing forums, online groups, Facebook Groups, Reddits, Discord, MeWe, whatever groups you find. Participate as a normal user, build your user voice, but use your time on site to systematically evaluate the breadth of audience. If you spend 3 - 4 months organically participating, you'll see how many members are actually active on a daily / weekly / monthly basis (regardless of how many total members there are) and whether the community size is increasing or decreasing. You'll see how much overlap there are of members; what sites are doing unique activities; what sites are dying, etc.

There are two schools of thought when starting a forum:

• Legacy forum administration: No plan. No idea. No strategy. But I have passion and a pretty theme!!
• Modern community management: Do your research. Figure out a strategy. Build a following. Then launch.

 

[Ray123]

I voted 'something else'.

What about a forum for Seniors who play MMORPGs?
Lots of benefits including mental stimulation, social interaction and seniors often more free time!

How getting into gaming at retirement age changed my life for the better

British scriptwriter, noted US opera librettist and director, and now author Richard Sparks opens up about why he turned to gaming later in life

www.readersdigest.co.uk

 

[Cedric]

For each of your topics (eg. Harry Potter), join existing forums, online groups, Facebook Groups, Reddits, Discord, MeWe, whatever groups you find. Participate as a normal user, build your user voice, but use your time on site to systematically evaluate the breadth of audience. If you spend 3 - 4 months organically participating, you'll see how many members are actually active on a daily / weekly / monthly basis (regardless of how many total members there are) and whether the community size is increasing or decreasing. You'll see how much overlap there are of members; what sites are doing unique activities; what sites are dying, etc.

There are two schools of thought when starting a forum:

• Legacy forum administration: No plan. No idea. No strategy. But I have passion and a pretty theme!!
• Modern community management: Do your research. Figure out a strategy. Build a following. Then launch.

This is very true.

And I would be classified under the legacy forum administration more often than modern. It’s very rare to see people take the modern approach. Legacy is just less time consuming. Time that can be spent developing the forum. But growth will be faster with the modern approach.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I voted 'something else'.

What about a forum for Seniors who play MMORPGs?
Lots of benefits including mental stimulation, social interaction and seniors often more free time!

How getting into gaming at retirement age changed my life for the better

British scriptwriter, noted US opera librettist and director, and now author Richard Sparks opens up about why he turned to gaming later in life

www.readersdigest.co.uk

This is interesting! There's probably quite a few people in their 50's and 60's now who still play MMORPGs, since they were in their 20's and 30's when major ones were released. I know at my old job one of my coworkers who's in this age gap told me she actually plays WOW and met her husband that way lol.

 

[TwitchisMental]

So as mentioned by others already.. the popularity of the topic in question will have a big effect on how successful a forum of said topic can be. Especially in today's world. A great example of a recent forum using a recently popular subject/game to get big is the Palworld Forum by Cedric. (Awesome work btw Cedric) Where as let's take the Gex Forums as a more slow example. Gex overall isn't as popular as Palworld so it has been growing slowly. Especially seeing how it already had a big Discord and Reddit community which we do work with.

 

[NeoMetallix]

Some but the interest is declining, unless the TV series launches you’re fighting such an uphill battle because the peak time for Potter forums was 20 years ago.

Is it though. Hogwarts Legacy was the best selling game last year. It smashed records.

 

[Haim]

Thank you dear and good people! Unfortunately I haven't decided yet .. I was thinking maybe about a small gaming community with a few game servers or opening a browser game

 

[Haim]

I voted 'something else'.

What about a forum for Seniors who play MMORPGs?
Lots of benefits including mental stimulation, social interaction and seniors often more free time!

How getting into gaming at retirement age changed my life for the better

British scriptwriter, noted US opera librettist and director, and now author Richard Sparks opens up about why he turned to gaming later in life

www.readersdigest.co.uk

interesting. What will this forum actually be?

 

[Ray123]

Hi Haim, Apologies, I've only just seen your reply.

This idea came to me because I was researching things for retired people to do - articles, such as 'Top 10 Activities for Seniors',
sort of thing!

Many of these articles suggested that Seniors could play MMORPG games.

The reasons are that:

1.) Seniors can suffer from isolation and these games have a social component which can ease seniors' feelings of isolation;
2.) Seniors may experience a decline in their reaction time compared with young gamers. However, they can join teams and they can participate in solo versions of MMORPGs;
3.) Seniors can find that without sufficient mental stimulation, they experience a decline in mental capabilities. However, the brain stimulus provided by these games can delay this process.

I have to point out, at this point that I know nothing about MMORPGs (or being a retired Senior). So its not a forum I could create.

But I do wonder if there is room for another hints, tips and advice type forum for the over 55-year-old demographic.
While writing this I found https://forums.oldtimersguild.com/ which is sort of what I mean.