One of the great things about the growing entrepreneur community is the passion and need to share the ups and downs of starting and running a business. This is one reason why forums are essential. The vitality of the forum members coming together to share information gives a forum its character. Let’s explore the most effective ways for increase user engagement, watch as your online community grows and maintain a dynamic and vivid virtual community.
How to Create an Excellent Forum Website
Define Your Focus: The main motivation to create your own forum would be to build a community around a 
shared interest. Think about what topic or theme that could bring your community together. Who are the people you wish join your forum, is it business management specialists or marketing consultants? Your forum will provide this community with a space to exchange ideas compare experiences and also enjoy a conversation with people who share a common interest. Whatever unites them together will be the core of your online forum.
Don’t Over-Thread: Be careful not to set up too many discussion threads since this could overwhelm visitors. Having multiple discussion threads with diverse focal points is great but too many topics may also lead threads with only very little conversation going on in them. It’s better to reduce the choices and keep a lively discussion going on, instead of creating a thread about small business coach training, create a thread on business coaching.
Make It Beautiful: Do not forget to make the design of your forum appealing to the eye. Appearance is still important. Members will feel more comfortable on a forum with a great design.
Keep Members Engaged: Since forums thrive on discussions, one of the biggest challenges of a forum admin is how to encourage participation of high quality advisors. One great technique to keep them engaged is to update members on new posts, replies and likes through email marketing notifications.
Be a Present Admin: One of the main responsibilities of a forum administrator is to moderate posts and keep the forum going and interesting. Builds a sense of community among your site visitors by being pro-active, answer questions, start a conversation and encourage your community members to participate. Create action plans to keep members engaged, like starting a poll or reviewing events that are relevant to your community.
Promote Your Forum Regularly: Don’t just sit around and wait for new members to join. It’s advantageous to promote the forum on outside platforms to bring in new members. Utilize your social media profiles to highlight specific threads, and get your most active members and moderators help. If you run a newsletter, use your newsletter lists to invite new members. You can also swap links with other forum admins so that they can also promote your forum while you promote theirs as well.
Stay Informed: As an admin, you need to show your knowledge to other forum members whenever possible. Knowledge is power. You can demonstrate your experience with the discussion topic or forum by providing helpful information and knowledge to other community members. You need to be updated with the latest news, technology, coaching for business developments and even gossip. These will help you in adding great content information and keep your online community engaged.