Shawn Gossman

If they're being dramatic and are a problem member, I'll delete their goodbye post and put them in post moderation. If they continue to be a brat, then I'll give them the boot. If they're leaving on good terms and they wish to say bye to the community, I'm okay with it. I think forums are at-will so I'm not going to get in a hurry to try to get them to stay. I'll let them make up their minds.

Beautiful designs. I really like the last one!

Most people don't complete their New Year's Goals because they set too high of a goal that is hard to achieve. Instead of quitting smoking as the resolution, why not make it go from 2 packs a day to 1 pack a day. Instead of loosing 100 pounds as a resolution, focus on losing 3 pounds a month. Focus on goals that are achievable with smaller amounts of effort. This is also a strategy on how to win in business. Your goals should be achievable rather than so far-fetched that you burn yourself out trying to accomplish the impossible. My goal is pretty simple this year: Blog every day for a year on my ShawnGossman.com blog.

ProBoards and other free forums are good if you don't mind rented space. That means you get what you get for free. You get what you pay for. You abide by their terms and if they shut it down, you just have to deal with it. You can also buy shared hosting for around $100 a year, a domain name for about $20 a year, and a free forum software like phpBB3 or SMF. Personally, nothing against ProBoards but I'd spend the $120 and use a free software and have full control over my community.

Back when I used to get drunk, I got on forums a lot. I got to a point where I was drinking to ease pain. That pain is long gone, and I don't drink anymore but it used to be pretty bad. At times, I said stuff I didn't mean when I drank and used forums. Sometimes, I'd be confrontational. I'd always feel bad about stuff the next day. It just wasn't a good mix. Nowadays, I don't drink, at all. I just don't have any use for it. I've watched a lot of my family members ruin their lives over alcohol. I don't fault anyone who chooses to drink but it's not for me.

Establish communities and your brand in marketing channels where your audience is. What to avoid at all costs? Spam, of course, AND marketing on channels where your audience is not. You should know your target audience before you start marketing. If you don't, pause marketing, determine your target audience, and resume marketing. Marketing without a target audience doesn't make any sense. It's like peeing in the wind! :P Great marketing channels include blogs (running one and commenting on them), email lists (direct line between you and your subscribers that algorithms can't touch), social media (you have to build your brand and a community before it works,s and it takes work), social media advertising (fine tune it to match your target audience and have a budget), forum ads (if it's for a forum, find forums with direct and similar niches that offer paid ads and advertise on them, especially those that use the same software as you), and word-of-mouth (which is still pretty powerful). SEO, of course, where possible. Easy to do on a blog. Not so easy on a forum.

PayPal for me. I'm used to it and established on it. I do use Stripe for some business accounts, which makes using PayPal a pain. I also use Venmo here and there.

Welcome Mama! :D

I don't think it's a very good idea. When a small entity competes with a very large one, it becomes overwhelming exhausting. That's because you have so much to compete with; instead of competing with something that will feel like it's always beating the %$#@ out of you, why not compete with similar-to-yours communities? If you can beat or gain something over a community about as big as yours or a slight bit bigger, that's going to make your day. It'll be easier than competing with the biggest thing out there, as well. BUT. Definitely keep an eye on the biggest communities. Watch what they do. Conduct quarterly SWOT analysis on them. You can learn a lot from the big dogs and apply it to your own community.

Ahrefs is a good tool. Not cheap by any means, but used by many people for success, especially in keyword research aspects. Pretty much them and SEM Rush. I'm interested in this new feature. Might have to try it out.

I'm the only administrator. Any other staff are moderators.

I have a certain method I use. I look at each reply and try to create a new topic idea from it. So, if a thread gets 10 replies, I'll try to create 10 new topics from it. I also use Google. I type in a keyword and then go to the people who also ask. Each time you click one open, you get more. I also surf other forums like mine, filter the topics that have the most replies and then create one based on that topic but with my own twist and often controversial.

I welcome it. Feedback is feedback. I have a newsletter that has over 3,000 subscribers with an open-rate of 68% and a CTR of nearly 10% (which is really good) I blame that success on asking for feedback I added a Google form with a quick survey on each monthly issue of the newsletter, asking what they liked, didn't like, and what they want to see in the future. I create future issues based on that feedback.

Too many to list that I've owned, LOL. Nowadays: 4 blogs 10 forums 4 business directories 2 events directories Multiple FB groups I use WP.org to power most of my static websites. I have a few of them, as well. This all sounds like a lot but about 5-10 years ago, I had WAY more.

I have a section on my forum called Shawn's Office. I keep a list of ideas there. I have around 100 topic ideas on there. I try to add 5-10 more each time I take one off.

Merry Christmas!

Nice forum :) I love the theme. Simple yet modern! Joined as Shawn.

I like my middle name. Joseph Joseph had a coat of many colors. I love that story.

I will use AI to help me with idea generation when I'm out of ideas. That doesn't happen too much. I use AI to build article outlines only to see if it suggests things I should consider adding to my own crafted outline. I use Grammarly AI for editing my written work. I only do it for minor stuff. I try to keep the words I use original; otherwise, who's voice is it actually? When AI suggests an edit due to grammar or whatever, I'll manually do it, too. That helps me get better at it rather than be lazy and press the AI button to correct it. AI can be a great tool, but it can also dumb you down if you let it. I can also tell what's written in AI. I can tell by looking at a person's past content versus what they have been posting lately. The choice of words and the structure of their sentencing and messaging often change. When I detect people doing it, it's almost awkward feeling because it's so obvious.

I think when we get to a point where we want to give up because the forum isn't going the way we want it to go, that's the time when we need to look at our current strategies and adjust them as needed. Whether or not I want to monetize my forum or not, I always run it like a business in a few different ways. One way is goal setting. I set goals (small achievable goals) that I can work towards. If I feel like I'm not making the forum into what I had hoped for, then I'll readjust my goals. The important thing is not giving up and being okay with easing down your expectations a little bit.

Experiment, experiment, and experiment. Eventually, you'll find what works and what doesn't. I've been doing that with all my forums. Sometimes, my creativity isn't where I want it, and I'll load up a highly detailed question and feed it into my GPT to help give me inspiration. It's just important that you try new things. Get away from your safety bubble. Experiments often lead to one-of-a-kind opportunities.

I do this at Copyblogger. I keep a Google Sheet of member names, locations, business niches, and interest keywords. When new members join, I scan my sheets for anything they can resonate with. If I find someone, I'll reply, connecting the two (or more) together for networking opportunities. Since we're a business community, it really works out. Connections that lead to networking is a big deal.

This is a really cool-looking feature!

Welcome to our community!

Welcome to a great admin forum! :)