Welcome to part two of our blog on best practices tips and techniques for forum moderators. Last time, we looked at the overall approach a forum moderator needs to take to build traffic and keep the conversation on target. In this installment, we’ll review some general guidelines on how forum moderators can maximize the interest in their forum and response for current and potential posters.

General Guidelines

 It’s always best in you have some expertise in the subject area(s) to which your forum(s) are dedicated. Additionally, consider the following guidelines to help drive traffic to your forum – and keep it there. Be Hands On. Have a public presence on your board and tell the story of how your community came to be. Why did you start it? What does it mean to you? How often you participate depends on the subject area of your forum(s). You’ll quickly be able to get a sense of how much your participation will be required to keep things moving along. Be Friendly to Newbies. Just like in high school, forums tend to develop core groups of friends. As long as these groups are helpful and don’t exclude others from a discussion, there’s no problem. As a moderator, you’ll be responsible for making sure new users feel welcome. That means engaging with them if the regulars happen to be ignoring new members.  Regulars. Any groups that naturally form must remain friendly and open to others. You can do this by communicating your expectations for tone and behavior, and by having a set of policies regarding language and treatment of new participants. Your regulars will be the lifeblood of your community, but if they have negative or exclusionary behaviors, then they’re doing more to hurt you than to help you. Provide Real Content. Avoid services that let you buy paid postings. You want real participants. It can be difficult at first and you may feel like you’re running a “ghost board.” Instead of giving up, or giving in to paid postings, work on recruiting quality members who can offer real answers to real questions. Once you have that, the rest becomes much easier. Getting started may require you to seed the content areas. This practice requires some care to ensure you build appropriate content and credibility among users. Failure to generate content and credibility can be the death knell of a forum. Market your community. There’s nothing wrong with promoting your community. Getting it listed in search engines and specialty directories that cover specific subject areas are keys to recruiting quality members. By the way, have you submitted your site to the Twing Forum Directory yet? Engage with leaders and regulars. As your community grows, the regulars will expect you to recognize and engage with them. You should do so enthusiastically because even though you’re providing the venue, they’re providing the content so it’s important for you to listen to what they have to say. They may have suggestions for new topic areas, functional requests, etc. Look at it as if you’re the owner of a professional sports team. You can field a great product, but if the players aren’t happy you’ll probably be out of work pretty soon (except if you’re Isiah Thomas). Foster participation with readers. Every community will have participants of varying levels, including regulars, intermittent posters and a great many readers. Overall, it’s a pretty safe assumption that for every regular, you’ll have 10 intermittent posters and 100 readers. Part of your job is to draw out the readers as best you can and get them to participate.  Allow for dissent. People argue, and forums foster heated discussions of all types – from video game systems and baseball to political and religious debates. In general, that’s what you want. The problem is when arguments turn into personal attacks. And in the pseudo-anonymous world of forums, this can happen much faster than it might in a face-to-face conversation. As a moderator, you’ll need to step in whenever this happens and get the discussion back on track, regardless of your own opinions. If you fail to do so or side with one member over another, you risk your credibility and, in turn, risk alienating your members. Introduce yourself. Create a forum or sticky area where new users can introduce themselves and talk about why they came to the board, share personal experiences and/or knowledge regarding the forum’s subject and grow comfortable with the format. You may even want to introduce yourself and share your vision for the community with new members. Stay tuned for: 

Best Practices for Forum Moderators, Part III – Guidelines for Your Forum

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