What do you find is the hardest part?

For me, as a complete newbie, it's getting members. I have plenty already but I get scared thinking about how to get onto Google and generate a lot of traffic etc.

I dare say the more experienced of you will struggle in different ways.

 

Building activity. Design is easy or can be outsourced. Development isn't much of an issue if you use a pre made script. SEO is manageable. Building regular activity? Now that can be hard. In fact, I'd say that's one of the most luck based parts of forum management in general, since there are so many minor things that change whether your forum will be successful or not.

 

Actually, the hardest part for me is actually posting my stuff on my own forum. I have a stumbling block about providing content on my own forum. I seem to enjoy posting on other places rather than my own.

Therefore, I know I have to work out this issue in order to get my forum up and running well.
Sometimes, I also get side-tracked by other things like YouTube, Bubblews or any social networking sites. That reduces my productivity.

 

Like you guys have already said, the Setup, Design, SEO is all a dodde to me, it's getting those members into my forum and registering an account in order to post.

I've always liked the designing side of site building to be honest, I just suck at getting visitors

 

For me the hardest parts are to attract new members and make existing members post more.... I guess it is something every forum owners face at the beginning

 

The hardest part of running an online community? It's quite simple actually, its about building the activity and keeping the content flowing. Too many times have I seen forums fail because they lack creativity, the drive, dedication and effort to keep their community pushing. Sometimes, a forum will become a quick success and the forum owner sits back and makes all the members do all the work. That's not a good thing because as an owner, you have to try your best to remain active and keep the forums going strong. Once you get a few members posting, others usually follow suit and your community becomes an active forum. It's all about getting those first few members on board and posting.

Without a good leader, the forum fails and its nobody's fault except the owner. Another thing that's hard is building up the traffic. Are you building fresh links to your site? Are you running a facebook, twitter, or tumblr account in order to grow your forum's traffic?

 

Well, making the members interact has been an issue with me. I have recently started a forum and invited a couple of friends from other sites to participate. They did take interest initially but over the days, this interest was gone - and today, the last post made by them is near a month old. On the other hand, there are spam bots which keep getting into the system and I just realized that I have pruned around 2000 accounts last week. Maybe, I am using the wrong forum application - phpBB3 - but that is free so I guess, I have not many choices.

 

The whole advertising and promotion thing is not my strong point. I really need to work on that.

 

The hardest part is attracting quality members, the kind you want to see logging on just so you can see what they have to say and respond. It's easy to attract the kind of member you wish would find another forum to call home.

 

I have to agree that building activity is the hardest. You can get the forum up and running, but getting people to join and be activity is the hardest part.

 

It's not hard to get members, but to get returning members is much harder. It takes time, patience, and hard work. You have to get lot's of content for members to constantly return to your forum.

 

As I am totally new to all of this I must admit it all seems daunting ,when you look at your forum with only one post. I guess its like having a party and worrying if nobody will turn up. Hopefully tho with time and study it will come together gradually.

 

Then all you need to do is some post exchanges for new content Make sure you lead by example on your forum, and post great content.

 

First make sure you have a few unique things up there, a nice logo and an attractive theme. Then try out some SEO methods and get yourself near the front page of Google, be sure to add keywords that people will search for. People don't instantly sign up unless you give them a reason to. I recommend simple things like not allowing them to view a few categories etc... Once they register they are much more likely to want to get involved.

Good luck!

 

I would say building activity can be quite tricky, and the occasional writers block where you totally run out of ideas of what to write, say or contribute,

 

When you have writers block, its a good idea to open up some blog websites or news websites and try to get some ideas flowing in your brain. Music also helps me on the creativity/writers block tip.

 

This weekend, the hardest part for me was keeping the site up and running and having proper backups.

 

Been there, done that with old forums. I hate it and I tend to panic. xD

 

The hardest part? Not banning every mental defective that registers. I have no tolerance for stupid. None. Zero.
If members post like a 13 year old retard my first inclination is to get rid of them.
But if I banned everyone I thought was a retard I'd be posting to myself.

 

Well banning must be done with stupids and they must not be left without this. I think the most difficult part is designing.