Hi. I would like the best way to start my forum. Before i realese my main business in August i would like to start up a community. The communites is for people who are in the creative industry. People can talk about 3D Modelling, Photograpy, Music. People to show there work. Using photoshop etc

What is the best way to launch the forum.

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Thanks,
Nathaniel

Well planning ahead for your site launch is good. Getting a forum started 7 months earlier should help your site launch all the more easier. Slow and steady wins the race :)

Moved to Web Design and Content BTW.

Well planning ahead for your site launch is good. Getting a forum started 7 months earlier should help your site launch all the more easier. Slow and steady wins the race :)

Moved to Web Design and Content BTW.

Thanks, for moving it. Also thanks for what you said. I wasn't to sure to get the forums up and running before the business, But i guess it will help the launch of the site

Thanks,
Nathaniel

Lots of helpful info on getting started can be had here: http://www.forumuniversity.com/
(not my site)

When i type that in it comes back with, "can not find server"

Seems to be off line temporarily...wait a bit. ;)

There's a lot of things to consider when starting up a forum - first, I'd like to congratulate you for not starting a "anything and everything" forum and are actually targetting a niche. That's your first step to success.

If you're serious about getting your forum started (and have money to spend), advertising on sites related to your niche definitely help (preferably ones that don't already have forums).

what we want to do is do a word of mouth forums. That we be good. If any of you are in the creative industry or enjoy doing stuff like this .e.g photography or photoshop please sign up.

I think getting a forum started by relying on word of mouth will be difficult. It's only achievable if your forum has something unique to offer your users. I'd still take the advertising route for the first month and then rely on word of mouth signups.

The only problem is that we dont really have much money.

Thanks,
Nathaniel

Hi Nathaniel, I see your problem then. If you can't afford buying a top forum software such as vBulletin or IPB then i'd recommend downloading SMF. SMF or Simple Machine Forum is in my opinion one of the better free forum software available, It has a lot of features I'd recommend one of which is the automatic MOD installer.

I'd also recommend getting MyBB as an alternative to SMF. MyBB has a lot of features similar to vBulletin. It's also has a great skinning system that allows for easy skin making. If you know basic HTML you should have no problem making a skin for it.

We use Simple machines forum. See sig for site

Thanks,
Nathaniel

Seems to be off line temporarily...wait a bit. ;)Power supply died. Got the new one in now though. :)

That is quite a good, but breif outline

Thats what im doing