How do you get a new forum going...

...without having to pay out for posters?

It's not that I'm a cheapskate or anything but it's just not in my budget at the moment to pay for posters.

So, how does one get people to sign up without paying for people to sign up?

I suppose I could create a bunch of fake accounts and carry on conversations with myself, but that seems rather dull.

Any other ideas?

 

This question gets asked on here all the time.

Some people will tell you to hire posters, but that's incredibly stupid when you could create accounts yourself and post an x amount of times on each account. Have a couple friends do it as well.

Once each board has some activity, just start promoting just like you'd promote any other website and let your accounts fade away. I get regular posters and new members everyday now.

 

I have myself a forum for webmasters, still struggling to get it take off!

you can create accounts and post, still its a daunting task though! Instead you could better pay to forum posters.

Wondering if any gurus out here could help a rookie like me.

 

Checkout postfusion from adminfusion, its a nice way to do post exchange.

 

Thanks for the tip. A post exchange sounds right up my alley.

 

will you be nice to pm me or post me here your forum link...id like to help

 

I'll post it here since it's in my sig, too.

http://www.zybrononline.com

 

Probably you have to pay for posting... if you want to reach something with a forum. Or you have to spend a lot of money to advertise

 

Try writing some articles about your forum to get some quality backlinks. Add your forum link to your siggie and start posting here or on other forum's. Visitors and members do click on sig links at other place's.

 

Here's a good step by step guide

1) Go to social networking sites and start a group. Recruit people who share the same interests as the group.

2) Facilitate discussion among group members

3) Feed them relevant content and ask them to recruit their friends.

4) Once you have a "critical mass" of loyal group participants, MIGRATE this group onto your forum

5) Use VBSeo or some other similar hacks/plugins to make your forum SE-friendly

Principles:

1) Many of the most successful forums out there are fueled mostly by a core group of friends/influencers. Learn to cultivate these people and earn their trust and loyalty.

2) You earn loyalty by providing free useful information/content/services/entertainment.

 

I dont have any experience starting a larger forum, only a couple of smaller ones. They both were very targeted. Basically I had a small supporting website behind it with some good original content.

 

I have clients who pay for my SEO service to get their forums to page 1 on google for their chosen keywords.....

This works well if you can decide which niche you want to be in, you can go for something like this.....


Lets say you were a forum about pets, you would be on page 1 of google for the keyword "Pet forums"......

This is probably the best way to get good posters and to create long lasting marketing strategies....


I mean you could do all the exchange posting, hiring, and doing it yourself, but eventually you are going to want to monetize your website and make it to where it will automatically bring in new members to your forum...all the exchange and paid posting is only temporary and when you stop paying, the content stops coming in.

On the other hand, acheiving page 1 rankings for your keywords is something that will keep bringing in new visitors to your site even after you have stopped paying!

 

Hmmm...if it's not in my budget to pay for posters...?

Yeah, so I'm certainly not hiring SEO services right now, either. But it is a good suggestion and I'm definitely doing SEO on the site, as well. But that doesn't happen overnight and in the meantime even if I did have lots of traffic not much would happen without lots of users.

Unfortunately the former doesn't always mean the latter, especially if the traffic coming in doesn't see anything to post about on the forum. Thus I am looking for ways to get users involved that isn't contrived (fake accounts) and doesn't cost $0.10 per post (paid posters).

But if there ever is room in my budget for SEO services, I'll keep you in mind.

 

Paying for posting isn't a good option. Sure you'll get activity, but it's not what you want for a good forum. Would you want to go out in the real world and talk to a group of people who are payed to talk to you?
You need targeted traffic...check my sig for more details.

 

I'd like to grab who ever thought of that dumbass idea by the neck and stick his head in the toilet.

That and contests.


http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=651670

 

I agree with your points. I have to add one thing though: Paying for posting is OKAY if (and only if) the paid posters will actually ADD VALUE to the forum. I've learned this the hard way

 

Very true. It's a risk, sometimes you come out on the better side

 

Well, I think I will stick with methods that don't involve paying anyone to post, if I can. Sure, it may increase the appearance of activity on my new forum but I think I'd rather take the time to attract genuinely interested individuals rather than pay for fluff.

Post exchanges seem a great idea though. Are there any other systems out there besides the one suggested at Adminfusion?

 

1. Build a forum that has a market which is uncatered for. With DP and other big boys around, I don't see why anyone should be interested in making these unless these are targeting specific audience e.g. countries.
2. Social networking

 

If you make fake account on your forum, then why don;t you just write a few good articles then just join as many SNS site and forumn as you can for promoting your site ?