A few of my customers (e.g. www.page45.com) have recently added a forum to their site. Although forums provide a massive opportunity for businesses to develop and nurture a fanatically loyal band of enthusiasts, they can also lead to hours spent dealing with administrative and moderation issues.
My experience moderating the Actinic Community for four years has meant that I’ve had a chance to see what works with forums, and what really causes problems. Here are a few tips I offer people when they are thinking of adding a forum to their sites:
1)     Purpose – It’s worth being really clear what the forum is there for in advance, and ensuring all new joiners know that. Is it just for people to ask advice from you or from other users? Is it also for people to generally network and become friends? Believe me, it really helps to know these things. Otherwise the regular forum posters who are on it every day (see point 4 – below) will dictate what it’s about and maybe take things in a direction which doesn’t reflect what your company is about.
2)Â Â Â Â Â Policies – What happens if someone gets abusive? Do you kick people off or put them on moderation? If people are on moderation, who does the moderation? A basic set of policies needs to be agreed in advance and turned into a set of terms and conditions that all new joiners sign up to. That way it minimises arguments.
3)     Policing – The best way to keep everything lovely and keep debate flowing freely is to deputise a few trusted people who are on there regularly to keep people in line. Then things only get referred to the company (or some sort of appointed oversight group) if things get properly nasty and needs being dealt with.
4)     Postaholics – Some people live on forums, and they will read every new posting and respond to about half of them. They will start to see the forum as being ‘their’ forum and will conduct random and irrelevant conversations – often hijacking threads on otherwise interesting things. This isn’t something you can avoid – this is just the reality of being on a forum. As long as you provide a ‘Random Chat’ forum, that will hopefully siphon off most of the chatter.
As I say, forums provide a great opportunity for mobilising what essentially amounts to an unpaid sales force, but there are huge pitfalls as well. By following these rules hopefully yor forum will become a place where people want to be – including you!