Over the past 2 or 3 years I’ve had the pleasure of watching Chase Speers excel with his state specific forums. He’s won a number of awards for his flagship forum (TalkDelaware.com) including BOTM on my old forum “vBSetup” as well as on vBulletin.com & vBulletin.org. TalkDelaware also won best website in Delaware for 2007 beating out the local newspaper! Chase has a state forum for Pennsylvania called TalkPA.net which has also won a few awards and honorable mentions.
Chase started chatting on forums about 5 years ago on a cell phone forum. He enjoyed it so much; he soon offered his help moderating the forums and became good friends with the owner Steve. That forum eventually was sold. Chase & Steve started up a few more forums, but Chase wanted full ownership of a forum, just had to think of a good topic. That’s where TalkDelaware comes into play, there is an “official” Delaware website that Chase was part of, but it didn’t seem like management had a full understanding of what could be done with their forums. Chase was determined to make a better forum for the state of Delaware, and that’s exactly what he did.
The official Delaware site was full of spam, trolls and just about every nightmare we as forum owners can think of. It was full of rude people who didn’t care who they pissed off and weren’t afraid to let their voice be heard. Chase was optimistic about the good people on this forum, and that’s who he would target when setting up his own forum. Chase became a very active user on that forum helping out everyone he could, all the time having his new Delaware forum linked to from his signature and maybe in some of the post as well. This can be a long process, but will get you quality users over time and in some cases; they will add your forum link in their sigs, thus recruiting more users. The only thing I would caution you about using this method, if you don’t want to get labeled as a spammer or possibly kicked of the forum you’re recruiting from, so test the waters and see what you can get away with.
If you look at the TalkDelaware forum, you’ll notice a custom style that matches icons seen throughout the state. This is the same on TalkPA as well, and I think it was a vital decision in his forum being successful. You want to let your members feel comfortable, and what’s a better way than tying in some of the great historical points of your state, into your forums.
To quickly summarize what I’m trying to get across in this article; don’t ever give up, be passionate about your topics and give your members what they want. Having a unique skin will help if it’s tied to the subject matter like TalkDelaware is. Provide help across all forums will help your membership grow, just like Chase did on the old Delaware forum, he offered his help and the members followed him over to his new and better forum. Chase also provides help on webmaster forums, including graphics help and suggestions to managing your community, which I feel he knows a great deal on both topics. Provide help to your members, and offer them incentives to stay on your site, and they will help advertise your site without you even knowing about it.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the first article in my series on being a successful forum owner, please comment and let me know what you would like to know about in my next article.
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almostgeek
December 14, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Chase is one of the class acts in the vBulletin community always helpful to other admins whist maintain an portfolio of sites that stand out from the rest. It's nice to see you feature him.
I tried to jump in on the state niche a couple years back but my heart just wasn't in it and I quickly sold the site. From an admin standpoint unless your passionate and knowledgeable about the niche your never going to gain traction.
To some extent I think all forums are niche whenever I click through from one of the webmaster's forum to say an Anime forum I'm instantly lost. It's hard to have a niche forum and stand head over shoulders against more mainstream topics as Chase has done.
Big Dan
December 14, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Chase is one of the class acts in the vBulletin community always helpful to other admins whist maintain an portfolio of sites that stand out from the rest. It’s nice to see you feature him.
I tried to jump in on the state niche a couple years back but my heart just wasn’t in it and I quickly sold the site. From an admin standpoint unless your passionate and knowledgeable about the niche your never going to gain traction.
To some extent I think all forums are niche whenever I click through from one of the webmaster’s forum to say an Anime forum I’m instantly lost. It’s hard to have a niche forum and stand head over shoulders against more mainstream topics as Chase has done.
Mikey
December 16, 2009 at 8:23 am
Chase is sure a good person to see about forums and to take examples from. I'm finding out how hard it is to run a niche forum with my Graphics one :p
Mikey
December 16, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Chase is sure a good person to see about forums and to take examples from. I’m finding out how hard it is to run a niche forum with my Graphics one :p
Mikey
December 16, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Chase is sure a good person to see about forums and to take examples from. I'm finding out how hard it is to run a niche forum with my Graphics one :p
Brandon_Sheley
December 16, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Thanks for the comments Mikey and Dan. Chase has done a great job with his site, it really made it easy for me to talk about him.
I hope the next article is just as easy to put together.
Brandon_Sheley
December 16, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Thanks for the comments Mikey and Dan. Chase has done a great job with his site, it really made it easy for me to talk about him.
I hope the next article is just as easy to put together.
Brandon_Sheley
December 16, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Thanks for the comments Mikey and Dan. Chase has done a great job with his site, it really made it easy for me to talk about him.
I hope the next article is just as easy to put together.
Anonymous
January 5, 2010 at 4:13 am
Thats true, when putting signatures on some fourms you get people labeling you and stuff but its not as common as real time spammers which are far more annoying . Nice guide btw
Josh112
January 5, 2010 at 4:13 am
Thats true, when putting signatures on some fourms you get people labeling you and stuff but its not as common as real time spammers which are far more annoying . Nice guide btw
Anonymous
January 9, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Great article, and certainly, great forums being displayed as examples. I’ve visited state specific forums and only noticed slow activity. Peaking at TalkDelaware, I see a fast paced, close knit community full of people passionate about their home state. Ultimately, I see a forum ran by a humble and modest administrator looking to expand his knowledge on community development while actively giving all Delaware residents, soon-to-be residents, and tourists a place to talk about their state, to-be home state, and tourism state.
It’s great seeing such dedicated people.
—–
As far as the article, ha, nice work! I’ve been being passionate but am sometime becoming a bit nonchalant as I notice lots of activity, participation and traffic. I also am losing a bit of hope – because the holidays had been slowing my forum that’s not even a month old. At any rate, it’s good to read things like this to reassure me.
Great article, great forum, and two great forums.
Keep it up Brandon and Chase.
TomTNS
January 9, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Great article, and certainly, great forums being displayed as examples. I've visited state specific forums and only noticed slow activity. Peaking at TalkDelaware, I see a fast paced, close knit community full of people passionate about their home state. Ultimately, I see a forum ran by a humble and modest administrator looking to expand his knowledge on community development while actively giving all Delaware residents, soon-to-be residents, and tourists a place to talk about their state, to-be home state, and tourism state.
It's great seeing such dedicated people.
—–
As far as the article, ha, nice work! I've been being passionate but am sometime becoming a bit nonchalant as I notice lots of activity, participation and traffic. I also am losing a bit of hope – because the holidays had been slowing my forum that's not even a month old. At any rate, it's good to read things like this to reassure me.
Great article, great forum, and two great forums.
Keep it up Brandon and Chase.
Jadeslair
February 16, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Thanks, I have set up two forums and one is going pretty good but the other one was an smf forum and I had to shut it down due to the spam, I just couldn’t keep up with it. I will try again once I learn a little more about how to prevent bots better.
.-= Jadeslair´s last blog ..Sniper Rifles of BFBC2 =-.
lorrieob
April 2, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Just starting out.
Gordon Varlas
June 28, 2010 at 2:50 am
This article is really amazing. Thank you for sharing that you are the wealth of knowledge with us once more. No wonder your blog does so well. Your site is very well designed, graphically impressive and full of good advice. Kudos.
BrandonSheley
June 29, 2010 at 3:02 am
Thanks Gordon, glad you liked it.
Are you thinking about building a forum, or do you have one already?
GeoliLyclenly
July 10, 2010 at 3:44 am
Hello http://www.brandonsheley.org people
Break is here, I’m bored. Came to discover some extra time consuming funnies.
Will be glad to see your best finds
Cruise Jobs Forum
May 19, 2011 at 12:03 am
Trying to find a Niche Forum Owners Forum, came across this site.
I think we should have a forum of our own.