How to make forums come alive ?

[Greaux Hosting]

I have always wondered how in the world someone grows a forum. I mean no one wants to post on a empty forum. even if there are a ton of cats and sub cats but no conversation going on no one wants to post there. So how do I get a forum going. Do I create several fake account to make the site look active and chat with myself. This is and has always been very puzzling to me

 

[sashablack]

Content is KING, so no matter how many bots or how many articles you have making it look like its active. What will drive traffic is content! BHW is a great example

-Sasha

 

[HoNeYBiRD]

Do I create several fake account to make the site look active and chat with myself. This is and has always been very puzzling to me

i think you answered your own question with this , so you can do this or pay someone to do it for you

to get the ball rolling, you need to fake activity, then if you have great content, like sashablack mentioned above, it will pick up eventually

 

[SlimProxies]

Content is KING, so no matter how many bots or how many articles you have making it look like its active. What will drive traffic is content! BHW is a great example

-Sasha

Why do you always post your name at the end of your posts?

 

[Chiefjop]

Yeah in this case content = king.

Next to it; if you build an option where people can advertise products this could bring extra people and extra activity to the forum.

 

[HoneyHelper]

you got to give some great information to make people join and engage in the forum!

 

[Deleted member 719276]

Why do you always post your name at the end of your posts?

nice question
How someone grows a forum ? It's hard only in the beginning I've a friend of mine, who started a forum, creating random topics by himself using different accounts and now the forum is one of the biggest communities based on a micro niche.

 

[dystopia]

Just like others have said, fake it till you make it. Also depending on the niche you could create and rank a few interesting articles just to get some traffic. If you also add some fake discussion, other people will sign up to join in on the discussion. It's just like any website but with user generated content, so it will rank just like any other website if you do your SEO well. After that it will be a snowball effect as more users will post more content and will attract more people.

 

[Greaux Hosting]

nice question
How someone grows a forum ? It's hard only in the beginning I've a friend of mine, who started a forum, creating random topics by himself using different accounts and now the forum is one of the biggest communities based on a micro niche.

So did he talk back and fourth on there with himself. How long did it take him ?

 

[MonsterMag]

Most forums are started by people that already have an audience/traffic. I don't know how BHW started, but I'm pretty sure they either had a (or several) website(s) to drive traffic, they split off of another board or maybe an IRC, or they started as a team.
Starting a forum the 'talk to yourself' way needs a lot of diligence and patience. In the end you still need to drive traffic somehow, else no one even reads your self conversation

 

[Tozzy]

Content is ofc a king, but you have to create an illusion of active community. If you post content but there is no discussion your forum will eventually turn into a blog or article website or whatever.
So generating fake posts combined with posting useful content is your best option. I'd suggest you find some one who is into the topic of the forum and who will help you to create this fake activity, better 2-3 people. This really helps, I was doing it alone and in a team of 4 people (incl. me) and in a team it was 1000 times easier.
Nowadays forums start to die, they're replaced by social media. Only geeks and IMers and programmers use them. Yes there are popular ones but most of them are very old. I couldn't name any successful forum started after 2013 to be honest.

 

[Nonilol]

So generating fake posts combined with posting useful content is your best option. I'd suggest you find some one who is into the topic of the forum and who will help you to create this fake activity, better 2-3 people. This really helps, I was doing it alone and in a team of 4 people (incl. me) and in a team it was 1000 times easier.

Good advice here! Ask a few friends to be active on your forum for a few days and during that time do your best to drive as much targeted traffic to that forum as you can. Give them a good reason to sign up! Maybe offer early-bird-freebies (like premium membership on your forum or similar) for members after they have 10 quality posts, stuff like that.

 

[superduper12]

You want to create interaction by seeing what questions people have in your niche and post these questions on your forum and answer them yourself. Ask others to join.

 

[DJPaulyD]

Forums grow slowly at first, then one friend invites another friend, who invites a 3rd friend and you get the idea.

There's also this amazing concept, you might have heard about it, called paid advertising? It's pretty new.

 

[Zwielicht]

nice question
How someone grows a forum ? It's hard only in the beginning I've a friend of mine, who started a forum, creating random topics by himself using different accounts and now the forum is one of the biggest communities based on a micro niche.

Ah, I've heard of that method as well. I was reading about someone taking on different personas to make it look more popular than it actually was and then promoting their forum on various sites. I bet when their forum finally started gaining traction, the owner was thinking:

 

[Aluminium]

Content is KING, so no matter how many bots or how many articles you have making it look like its active. What will drive traffic is content! BHW is a great example

-Sasha

This.

As a content creator myself - I agree .

 

[nomansohail]

Lol some good advice here what i would actually do is join the forums in my own niche so for example if im into gaming and i started a gaming forum id join atleast 10 gaiming forums, get to 100 posts on each (if u r interested in it it wont take you alot of time to reach 100) then in each forum just contact people telling them you are starting your own forum but you would have to offer them something different or better than what is already being offered in the forum u r on, then tell them you are looking for mods EVERYONE wants to be a mod of the forum in a niche which they love so they can show off lol then tell them that the condition is minimum 100 posts and they should invite as many ppl as possible so in the end whoever does get the most people and posts to your forum becomes the mod and do this perhaps every month or 2 months ... Whoever the candidates invite gets a free 6 month premium on your forum soo they also have a reason to join etc ...

 

[carpozi]

nomansohail has a good idea. Hit up people with huge post counts on each of the forums and offer them moderator or something. Then they will do lots of work pushing your new forum...

Or make it exclusive and produce crazy content so people have to ask to get in. Facebook did something similar when they started, by just releasing it in top universities.

 

[RoXt3R]

For starting a Forum, You can firstly develop a blog or website with very reach , unique, attractive, informative and related content. Then, when you'll get a large number of targeted and stable visitors from your website, then you can easily start a forum as a part of that site.

 

[RanoldKO]

get into the base for xrumer...