The worst thing about forums
December 27, 2007 – 11:33 pmWell I don’t know how many of you know me as Dannyboy-Online a moderator on one of the largest money making forums moneymakergroup.com but those of you who do know how fond I am of forums.
I’ve been a member of tons of forums throughout the internet, and have moderated countless forums from the days when the word blog didn’t even exist. I’ve watched forums come and go, watched them grow and watched them evolve, and to tell you the truth I’m forever fascinated by their limitless possibilities to grow.
But there’s one thing in most forums out there, that in my opinion goes against all marketing and promotion strategies, and this is newbie limits. Now I don’t know how much of you are member’s of forums but for those of you who are, I’m sure you know all the limits that are imposed on your account when you sign up.
Some forums won’t let you use the messenger service, some won’t let you set up a signature, some won’t even let you post hyperlinks unless you reach a minimum number of posts. Is this how a forum is to welcome its new, potential long term members? From the “little” I know about marketing, you have to offer incentives for the new members not pose restrictions.
Yes some of you will say it’s a measure used to control multiple user names, spam and abuse, I know all that, remember I moderate a 100,000 member forum, and go through all these problems on a daily basis, but can’t we all see that these limits are so ineffective that they even promote spam and useless posts?
If you set limits on someone based on the number of posts the user has done, what’s the first thing anyone thinks of doing (Post a bunch of useless replies to reach the minimum number of posts required to send a message to another member of the forum about a great deal that was posted). I know! I’ve done it and I see it every day.
Tiny note:-
If you are a forum owner, or you are thinking about starting a new forum, don’t just go with the flow, be creative don’t use a feature just because it’s available in your forum software. Come up with other ways to “try” and manage spam, and control abuse. And make sure you reward new members and not restrict them.
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I used to work for Forumer.com helping support forums and have operated forums for 3 years. I am DISGUSTED by forums. I took up blogging as it is still getting your content out there, but in a much different approach. Forums are too much drama.
HeHe I disagree,
I find any online community interesting, the fact that they usually grow exponentially and that they generate content on their own make them ideal for anyone wishing to make money.
You can’t compare blogs to forums because they’re completely different. It’s like comparing IRC to Messenger, they’re both chatting but totally different.
Several companies I use including ValueClick media won’t allow their creatives on forums. They don’t like the lack of control. I suppose it is all in the eye of the beholder. I like a controlled environment.
By the way, forums don’t grow exponentially unless there is at least somewhat of a good marketer behind them.
Some advertising networks do not like forums because of the huge volume of spam I agree, but you don’t really need advertising networks you can easily sell advertising directly if the forum is popular enough and is in a marketable niche.
To tell you the truth I’ve discussed forum growth trends with a friend of mine some months back, and he had your perspective, but I managed to show him some groth charts of a couple of forums I joined some years back and there was one thing that was certain.
The hardest times for a forum are the first 6months, if by that time there hasn’t been some substantial activity the forum would usually die off.
But once the forum reaches a certain point of registered members who post daily on the forum things start moving, you start seeing people bring friends, you start getting members from other forums and even from search engines.
Of course there is work involved, because it doesn’t come with the viral capabilities of friendship networks like myspace and hi5, but once it gets some loyal members it usualy kicks of quite nicely.
Loyal members are VERY hard to capture. Most people can only be loyal to 2 or 3 forums due to well, the amount of time. Blogs, I can subscribe and visit many more.
A small percentage experience great success, a larger, but not the largest percentage experience success, the largest experience failure.
Yes that’s true but the main thing I noticed about blogs are temporary visitors, they just come leave a comment and never come back.
That does happen on a forum but on a much lower scale, and usually those who don’t come back to a forum aren’t really forum people they just signed up to post a link or to promote something.
Yeah, the only forum I really visit these day is Digital Point, and thats just a bunch of web Gurus saying they know all the secrets to SEO and never elaborating. It is a good place for link building though.
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Great post! Just now I read a very brave article…Until I read this post, I didn’t feel bothered with all the forum threat to the members. I considered that it’s the part of procedure. But now I do agree with you…Thank you for give me another point of view.
The danger with forums is developing into cliques, so you get the “in crowd” and “the rest”. Getting control freaks in charge also tends to ruin them. What is the point of limiting the forum experience for new members? You want to encourage them, and show them all the benefits of your forum.
Unfortunately that’s quite true, but in large forums that doesn’t really happen. Usually moderators moderate a forum like any other ordinary job. They go through daily procedures to see who’s messing around and that’s it.
I sign up with a very popular forum and 2 weeks ago. They said a moderator will need to review and approve before I can post. Till now, I still cannot post, can only sign in and read. Sucks.
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