Forum on my site

[PeteA]

I am contemplating adding a forum on my site, to discuss the sale of small businesses.

I would be happy for people to advertise and leave links

Any feedback on this idea would be appreciated

Thanks

 

[falconinternetlimited]

Forums are a good idea if...

1) You can be pretty sure that people will register and use it
2) See 1 and repeat as necessary

There's nothing worse than a forum that has no activity or usage. If you know you can drum up interest etc then I would do it. Otherwise it just makes you and your company look "dead".

I can recommend PHPBB which is free and pretty easy to setup. htpp://www.phpbb.com

Regards,

Rupert

 

[PeteA]

Thanks Rupert,

The idea I will look into it

The idea of asking the question in the first place was to see if people here would be interested in posting on the forum, the lack of replies may indicate the answer is no.

 

[theMBA]

Pete,
I'd be interested. I offer business plan reviews to small businesses. Businesses being prepared for sale might be a fruitful customer segment for me.

 

[Rob Holmes]

I would participate - so thats 3 people

Is your site busy at the moment (e.g. do you have a membership base to instantly enrol into the forums)

Generally speaking you need to invest in promoting forums on a continuous basis or new membership applications will dry up.

Rob

 

I *might* possibly be interested in using it, if there was a prospective client base of new owners who need copywriting services...

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Forums are a good idea if...

1) You can be pretty sure that people will register and use it
2) See 1 and repeat as necessary

There's nothing worse than a forum that has no activity or usage. If you know you can drum up interest etc then I would do it. Otherwise it just makes you and your company look "dead".

Good advice!

Generally speaking you need to invest in promoting forums on a continuous basis or new membership applications will dry up.

More good advice!

I have to confess, I really have a prejudice against creating forums as a marketing tool.

In an article I wrote recently, I talked about the sort of business that I think is best avoided:

"This is the type of business that I call “the risky snowball”.

It’s the sort of business that is quite likely to fail, but it’s going to take one hell of a lot of time, money and/or effort to find out.

I call it a “snowball” because it’s going to take a long build up of momentum (like a snowball being rolled down a hill) before it shows any real success.

And it’s risky because the owner can devote anything between 6 months to 2 years before he really knows if the business is ever going to achieve the level of success that would make it worthwhile.

This means, if it doesn’t work (and most don’t), the owner’s going to lose and lose big."

To me, starting a forum is "risky snowball marketing".

There's a very high failure rate for forums and, even if your forum succeeded, whatever time and effort you invested in building it up would probably have given you an even higher return if you had invested it in a more direct form of marketing.

However, as I said, I'm prejudiced, so feel free to dismiss my comments.
Steve

 

[FreeLocal]

I would be interested. Keep me updated.
Keith

 

[PeteA]

Thanks Steve all comments are good, even the negative ones.

I will probably start a forum and monitor it, if it looks like failing I will dismiss it.

However I do believe there would be some good discussion points in the sale or purchase of small businesses.

 

[JustOneUK]

even if you get no members you can still make informative posts yourself, it then will become a good resource... and attract questions and conversation.
It's a snowball effect. (just a little boring talking to yourself to start with)
I would say you would be looking at 1 year OR 200 informative posts...whichever is sooner.

James.

 

[PeteA]

The good thing is I have plenty of time.

I will let you all know when the forum is live.

Anyhow posting to myself on a forum cannot be as boring as keeping a daily blog, now that is boring.