Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I want to start a community forum for my customers (and perhaps potential customers).

So, how do you avoid that empty feeling when starting up a forum.

It does not look great that you go to a business website, poke around, find their community forum and see 2 members and 5 posts and no replies.

A couple of questions:

What is the critical mass necessary for a lively vibrant community?

Until you get to that critical mass what can you do (without scraping or faking) to make your community seem alive rather than dead?

Or is it just something you have to go through?

Definitely something you have to go through, and you need to fake it at first.

I ran a political blog and we had to start the conversation.  No other way to do it.  People don`t want to talk, so you need to give them something to talk about.

A way to make them care:

Make it VERY GRAPHIC, big fonts, big icons, big web2.0 style.  Fills up the page and doesn`t seem so dead.  Organize it with most recent replies at top.

Use fake accounts with images of attractive people . Let`s face it, you`re more likely to answer questions from an attractive girl before an ugly guy.  Just the way it goes, so ride with it.

Good luck.  If you need any help populating or driving real users, send me an e-mail.

I agree with guerillaRed. No one likes to be first on the dance floor. You have to jump out there and do it and people will follow. You can also hire posters (I`ve seen rates of anywhere from 25-50 cents per post) to do the job for you. Do a Google search. They`re out there.

Joe
http://www.teazinsgreetings.com


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Joe
TeazinsGreetings.com

I`m stunned.  I`m shocked. This all seems so clandestine, so immorral, so down right ........ I love it!  Thanks for the lesson.

Hi,

Wow...can anyone at this forum list an online community / social networking website they built / marketing / ran for more than a year that backs up their view point?

Jeff

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Joe
TeazinsGreetings.com

I remember when Startup Nation had only a couple of topics, a few members, and not a whole lot of activity. Early subscribers were often part of a discussion with Jeff and Rich, Joel and everyone else in the company. In those discussions, everyone made an effort to introduce new topics, add to a discussion, and so forth.

A forum doesn`t just happen, it has to strike an interest and resonate with people. Early forum topics here often were just personal discussions, bragging, complaining, asking questions, offering suggestions, and simple conversation.

It`s like a cocktail party, where the people who arrive early sort of gather in a small group, just to talk. As more and more people show up, they might at first listen to what`s going on. But it depends on that small group to reach out and widen the entire thing into a real party.

One option on a new forum would be to develop a core group of friends who would help build conversation. The key, from what I`ve seen, is that whomever is hosting the forum should be very active, interacting with as many members or new members as possible. Without that interaction from the site hosting people, things begin to decline.

So a forum is like a party, and any good party has a host or hostess (or several). If you don`t have strong social skills for hosting a party, then get someone who does. :-)

yeah. just invite all of us. And make it a GOOD, and interesting party. :)