The obvious answer is pay them - forum posting type services normally charge like 0.10 cents per post and sometimes more if you want them from multiple accounts / usernames or have special requirements. There is software for forum websites that automatically posts and makes a forum look active and populated with users but dont know if there is such a thing for normal sites otherwise hold competitions or incentives like prizes to people who make so posts by a set date - then draw a winner at random etc. Be creative.....
okay thank you..the paying part is kinda weir.. do you pick random people and tell them to post for money
You can create contests, offer prizes, post interesting things. Search google for forum posting services for the question above.
You can hire people for posting at your forum. Try to arrange few contests as well at your forum (such as prize for higher threads starter,higher posters etc.) DON.
You dont even have to find people, this is how they are normally done: Advertise here at DP in the contest section > where you start a thread and clearly state what the posting requirements are like how many posts, word length, date contest ends, how many prizes their are, must submit there real email address so you can contact if they win a prize, the niche of the site they be posting at etc. To some people the money or prize may be small so they want try but others it may equal a good sum in their currency and only takes time to enter. Say there must be like 10 different relevant posts with minimum of 20 words and for 10 posts they gain 1 entry into the prize draw. Look in that section to see what other members post for similar contests to get ideas. Then assign every person who meets contest requirements as being entered in a spread sheet like in excel and assign a number 1-50 if there were 50 entrants. When the contest finishes - then search google for a random number generator and you want 5 random numbers between 1-50 and those 5 numbers equate to a person who wins a prize etc. You could even say that the posters who to do the best job - may could also be hired for ongoing paid work @ so many cents per post at the same site as more incentive to enter the contest Otherwise there are many people who provide forum posting services right here at dp also - some will have good itrader and feedback history as well as run their service from an external site where you can order from.
You have to create teaser posts. Think about your current content and what could be done to create future discussion. Think about every post like open source system - something that always can grow and users are welcome to contribute. Here is a link for web site success story, in case you want to learn how others succeeded - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/anthropology_the_art_of_building_a_successful_soci.php
If you don't want to spend money getting people to post on your site, just create a few different accounts on it. This works a lot easier if you have different browsers installed on your computer (FF, IE, Safari, Opera, Chrome, and Netscape are all on mine). Just log into the forums with a different username on each browser and post in topics. This is probably the best way to get content onto your forum, then just start marketing the site and others will see these "active discussions" and join in
pay people for it make some contest and invite your friends to write something if you have 100 friends,,,,,,,1 post per friend = 100 posts and much more
Try posting things that encourage people to share their views on the matter, like a controversial subject?
Get something unique on your site so people want to stay. If you aren't offering anything unique, why would they stay?
You could try Ad Revenue Sharing, that way they can post their own ads, make some money off your forum.
Be sure to have interesting topics on your site for your targeted readers. In that way they will always have something to say and post on your site.
Definitely search for people that will post-for-pay, of course. Something that works very well on a blog is to write content that is controversial and engaging to get the minds of the readers racing to the point they just need to tell you what's on their minds in regard to your topic. A little silly trick that works especially with Wordpress if you have Akismet spam protector would be to see if all the spam truly is spam. The filter is good, but sometimes legitimate looking posts are labeled as spam. Check the backlink to make sure the site it links from isn't a scam and, you know, every once in a while let some of those comments through if you're really hurting for the illusion of activity on your site that bad.