Need Help! Best Methods To Promote A Forum

[JTA10]

First off I did a search on this and didn't come up with much.

I have a forum localized mainly to my country. I have wordpress running as the blog on the front page and the vbulletin forum running under mydomain.com/forum.

What would you do to promote a forum? How would you get it initially full with threads? Hire people or make a ton of accounts and do it yourself?

Never dealt with a forum before so I'd like some pointers.

Thanks!

 

[SEOSIOS]

get users that want to post, I started with a fanpage to get users

 

[JTA10]

I have a facebook fanpage but it's not getting a lot of action. Did you run a PPC campaign on it through facebook?

get users that want to post, I started with a fanpage to get users

 

[kooycat]

Agreed!!!

 

[favorshows]

If you have money to spend just get some people to populate your site.
You can find people who can get you 100 posts for $1 of course the quality won't be amazing, but then again it's a forum. Noone is expecting all people to give high quality replays right

 

[Mister A]

Post interesting stuff.
A forum has to be somewhat interesting,and you can't just buy links for that,through anonymous forum posters.
It will look artificial,and folks will automatically be turned off by it.
A forum has to have a life of it's own.
Imagine this one if it was paid for,with artificial communication by robot's...
I just do not think you can create one without some folks with an interest in your topic.

 

[JTA10]

Ya I guess there is no easy way really.

Really the niche I'm in draws a large attraction by having DIY's posted.

That's tough to do as I cannot just go out and copy the DIY's from other forums. And I'm not necessarily an expert on the 1000+ topics within my niche.

 

[abbiejenkins]

I don't see why you can't do both approaches. Pay to get the initial post count up and then have others come in to post on your forum. I think what it really comes down to, if you want a genuine and organic feel to your forum, you're going to want to build relationships with people in your niche. How to do that depend on your niche. I like the fan page idea as one way. But if you can somehow provide value and have participation in your forum as the reciprocal exchange then you might be in really good shape.

 

[ksmiley]

What type of forum is IE,

IM,Money,automotive etc....

 

[nirose]

Have a contest on forum with a good giveaway with some time duration where they have to join the forum and start some discussions and share it on facebook.

That will get people's attention. (you might need some moderation and some plugs to check duplicate registration and such)

Then evaluate what your users are interested in and start posting more of it.

 

[JTA10]

Great idea! Thanks!

Have a contest on forum with a good giveaway with some time duration where they have to join the forum and start some discussions and share it on facebook.

That will get people's attention. (you might need some moderation and some plugs to check duplicate registration and such)

Then evaluate what your users are interested in and start posting more of it.

 

[namepimp]

What I would do is SEO your website to top 10 results for a keyword, and users will automatically sign up with high sign up rate.