Forum moderators: how to find?
I still consider developing a community of loyal members as a long term goal for a few of my websites and I try to stick to my program on forums
It is likely to take much time due to a number of reasons, but the most important one is I do not have any experience of creating communities. I am not certain what works and what steps are primary. I just read a few forums and go by trial and error.
I am set not to repeat some of my mistakes I did in the past (when I started about 10 websites simultaneously with no idea how it all works, with no long term plans and concepts. The result? About $10,000 wasted investments. I would like to get rid of a few of my projects and focus on those that look promising).
This time I am going to succeed with one forum first to see what works and what is a useless waste of time. Once I know the basics I will attempt to transfer my experience to the other websites.
One of the issues I am faced with now is how forum owners get their moderators?
I am amazed to read that people have 5-10 dedicated mods per forum who work for free. Where do you get these extraordinary people? Even Lee, a well known specialist in forums, does not pay his moderators. And the guy runs a few big boards.
I browsed a few forums including theadminzone.com, made notes of the tips on getting staff for your forums and tested them – with no great success I should admit.
The idea to promote most active users to the position of moderators was not successful – the members are active, but they did not reply to my messages.
I should test offering some premium features (probably I should place an adv in the forum – searching for a moderator): bigger signatures, premium sections, more upload space, special banners, etc.
At this moment the forum I experiment with is 7 months old and with 255 members. I cope with it quite well. But I would like someone to take care of the forum (a volunteer).
Summary: I know that it is a problem with many new forum owners: to find moderators. Possibly, it is the result of tough online competition – old generation of volunteers has found their forums and stick with them, new generation prefers to launch their own communities or be paid for this work. And number of forums grows at a fantastic pace.
Should I wait a couple of months more improving the website and the atmosphere for new members to join and find interesting to become mods?
[tags]forum, online community, staff hiring, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, blogs, content generation, make money online, work from home, home based job, earn your living online[/tags]
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