When it comes to developing a forum as a means of marketing your online business one of the key components is the free flow of communication between members.
You will discover there may be times when you need to work at initiating conversation between your members. If the site does not elicit conversation members will migrate elsewhere and may not be overly interested in returning.
It may be to your advantage to hire (or offer) a moderators position to a motivated early member. This moderator will work to keep conversation going and they will also monitor the forum for spam and inappropriate posts.
This moderator should have an interest in the primary topic of your forum and have the technical skills to remove posts while providing new content for members to consider.
There should come a time when the moderator simply provides a policing effort while allowing other members to continue to interact.
One other element that may be useful is to cross-pollinate your business blog (b-blog) with your forum. Essentially you would have your moderator post your blog material within your forum. This can help drive forum visitors to your blog without the...