Timing and labor force to manage forum

How much time I need to run avarage traffic forum

[shape]

I am thinking to run forum in a month or two. I make my site seo, adwords, overture, customers support, press releases etc. Can I manage forum in addition? How much time I'll need to run average traffic forum?
Thank you very much for ideas.

[Teknorat]

Depends on what your average traffic is.

[shape]

Well, it is a new site. For 4 month I got just 7 thousand visitors. I expect there will be 10-20 posts in a day.

[rogerd]

10 or 20 posts a day would be a light-volume forum (though perhaps perfectly adequate for your needs). Depending on your software, I wouldn't think that much labor would be involved. Early on, you might average an hour a day - welcoming new members, posting yourself, and performing an occasional moderation task. The only things likely to cause more hours would be a major technical problem, a spam attack, or some kind of conflict between members.

While your posting volume is low, if your software permits you can put new threads or even posts on "notify" so that you can see what's going on without having to log in as often. This will also show up a spam attack in its early stages.

If you are deeply involved in the topic of the forum, you may need more time to post yourself. You'll want to be sure members are getting replies, and you may want to craft some conversation starters, tutorials, etc.

The time you'll need is proportional to the posting volume and new member activity. A forum with no activity takes no time to manage, but is kind of boring. If your forum takes off, though, you won't be at that ten or twenty posts a day for very long!

[Teknorat]

I doubt even an hour a day would be needed.- Half an hour tops for a forum of that size.

[shape]

Thank you so much for the ideas. Now I am more prepared :~))