Getting users on a new forum?

[Hack Rally]

I've recently launched a new forum.

I was doing a lot of research on growing forums, and a few of my old ones died off at around 500 members, and I'm looking to expand greater.

Does anyone have any idea on SEO, or any tips to getting members who actually post HQ content / ask questions instead of people just lounging around?

 

[RoXt3R]

Social media marketing is the best way for you here. You should develop high quality and attractive content on web to impress your targeted people. Be active over the sites , forums and blogs of your category.

 

[shaneparkins]

Postloop - great site for kickstarting forums and relatively cheap too.

 

[OrangeNRG]

there are plenty of forums out there for every kind of topic. what makes yours better? why would someone even want to stick around?

people are starved for time and energy in today's society so getting people to contribute high quality posts to your forum is a big request right off the bat.

i would take Rox's advice... also evaluate if you even want to keep doing forums in the first place.

good luck.

 

[hieronymusf01]

there are plenty of forums out there for every kind of topic. what makes yours better? why would someone even want to stick around?

people are starved for time and energy in today's society so getting people to contribute high quality posts to your forum is a big request right off the bat.

i would take Rox's advice... also evaluate if you even want to keep doing forums in the first place.

good luck.

agree
good luck

 

[Sristy]

Postloop is a great place to start getting new content. Promoting through other related forums in your niche. Social Media is another place where you can get lots of members, but for members to start off you need to have some great content already existing in the forum.

Basically, start creating great content and start promoting it.

 

[Ambassy]

Reinventing the wheel is getting tiresome:
http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/blackhat-lounge/721491-how-kick-start-forum.html

 

[pitrene8]

In my words social media is a best tool to do advertising. You can expand your forum by means of this.

 

[TyphoonAgency]

Forums are goldmines and rank well with free user generated content when completely marketed. Unfortunately many people don't realize it cost plenty of money to get a forum off of the ground. You need to find talent in your niche and make it worth it to them to contribute regularly. That gives you the right content for new readers.

Now when you promote it on social media it will do well because people have incentive to join and discuss.

 

[gritts]

Forums are tough if you're in a saturated niche but also in a rare niche as there aren't as many possible members to join.

However, regardless of the situation, no one likes to join a dead forum so make sure it looks active by either creating fake accounts/posts yourself or doing exchanges/paying for posts depending on your time/budget.

Controversial posts are great too, i.e. "Apple sucks, Android ftw" if you have a cellphone forum for example.

 

[Kory1]

Social media is good for promoting anything, but users who still use forums probably use multiple forums. With that in mind, I'd try advertising on competing forums. If you don't have the budget for paid traffic, you could post on other forums in your niche or outsource it cheap. You want to become known by all of the users that currently post on other forums in your niche.

 

[lightningblitz]

I have worked for a successful forum and been a member of a few.

What works?

Pay respected members within your niche to post. A couple 'basic' posts you can advertise or put 'featuring' on the home page. You can pay writers in the niche to write a specific article which will be easy to rank as well.

Or massive social media campaigns to people in the niche but are not dedicated to any current forum.

What works to drive traffic from social media or encourage people to be active?

Give away options which are niche specific. If you are starting a DVD Forum, offer a DVD for the most active member or some thing along those lines.

 

[SeoWrecker]

Hire some quality forum posters..Once the engagement starts increasing you will see the members spiking.
Noone likes a dead forum..

 

[Kory1]

I have worked for a successful forum and been a member of a few.

What works?

Pay respected members within your niche to post. A couple 'basic' posts you can advertise or put 'featuring' on the home page. You can pay writers in the niche to write a specific article which will be easy to rank as well.

Or massive social media campaigns to people in the niche but are not dedicated to any current forum.

What works to drive traffic from social media or encourage people to be active?

Give away options which are niche specific. If you are starting a DVD Forum, offer a DVD for the most active member or some thing along those lines.

A caution about the part I bolded, you run the risk of them reporting you to the admins of the other forums and then that bridge might be burned for any legit advertising you wanted to buy from them and your reputation tarnished with the members that know about it. Other than that it's a good method that can work a lot faster than becoming known in that niche yourself.

 

[lightningblitz]

For the part you put in bold, I am suggesting people NOT active on forums. Respected writers from websites or real reporters in your niche. Forum members do not get the same credibility as someone featured on non - forums.

 

[poksjoks]

You can promote forum only over partnership.
You need open partnership on your forum.

 

[SexyDuck]

How about scraping RSS feeds from popular blogs and forums in your niche?

You should find a way to automate this though.

 

[JamesConway]

Start by posting quality content yourself... Theres a reason why DD has 20k+ posts on this forum bro.

 

[blackbeans]

Getting forum users can be quite tricky.

You have to remember that people would visit your forum but they're not going to participate unless there is consistent and constant activity on your forum.

If I were you, I would hire two virtual assistants.

One VA is going to focus on simply keeping your forum active.

Give this person several dozen accounts and how that VA post all sorts of stuff to make it look like the forum is active and has many participants.

Also, make sure that all forum posts have a proper SEO.

What I mean by this is that there as to be niche-specific keywords in the forum post title.

What makes this tricky is that the forum post must be useful.

So, the best approach for this is to get the VA to look at question-and-answer forums or question-and-answer resources like Yahoo Answers and get ideas there for forum discussions.

Also, stir up fake drama among different fake forum personalities.

Try to make it look real.

The other VA should drum up traffic to your forum.

Since there's a lot of questions being asked at your forum and a lot of answers are being supplied, the promoter VA should go to Facebook groups, Facebook fan pages, Yahoo Answers and other resources and try to drum up traffic that way.

Also, other forums are great places to get traffic as well.

It's also a good idea to post your forum discussion links on related blogs.

Don't expect your forum to gain traction overnight.

It's going to take quite some time but if you're able to grow an inorganic community and it becomes self-sustaining, the amount of effort you need to put into your forum can decline very rapidly.