I have a new forum have a few members.. just got online a couple days ago. So far just been promoting on other forums.. I'm thinking about putting up a fan page running a couple of ads on facebook. and doing a couple of contest mabey a thread and post contest.. winners get 100 bucks paypal or wire something like that. I'm also thinking of paid traffic. Just got to stick with it just takes time.
I got VERY lucky.... I was an admin on a forum that got hacked over & over & over again. It's owner didn't care all that much about it and never bothered to do any offsite backups. So once when it got hacked, I grabbed as many folks as I could and started my own forum. Within the first month I had well over 200 active members. Other then a few signatures, about 30 directory submissions, and posting on my own blog(s), I've not advertised. The ONLY advertising that is done on it is by word of mouth, and after 4 years : Threads 10,237 Posts 103,176 Members 4,352 Yeah, not the GREATEST, but I'm really doing my best not to sell out, as I'm NOT in it for the money.
not bad though. i'm just starting to develop my new forum. what i'm currently doing is tweeting some useful threads of my forum.
rather then just tweeting, set up a facebook page, then set it up to auto-generate tweets from there. It'll save ya time...
I used the services of a forum posting company. It really helped and before long, many of these "paid" members became regular "unpaid" members. Then they started telling others about my forum and it didn't take long before I had a nice forum. I highly suggest pro forum posters dot proboards dot com. Tell the Admin slick sent you; he might give you a discount.
For me i am using adverts. i placed ads in my other websites, so far, in four days i have 25 members, i think thats a good start
Proper SEO was probably the main thing I focused on. I also posted a lot on related forums and used signature links wherever possible.
Its an option on facebook... no clue where I found it. FB generally looses me. http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=208467509193268
Definitely have to populate the forum with quality threads and invite people to sign up. Keep on promoting and having interesting discussions and it will grow more and more each day.
Thanks, looks like it work for Facebook Page > Twitter. But is there anyway to a grab a feed right from the forum instead of updating the facebook page manually? Probably wouldnt work like that.
That I don't know... but I do know, that if there was, it would be WAY to spammy on both FB and twitter. Just grab randomly bumped threads that you find interesting and announcements, then just give'm a wall post every few days. It does not take all that long. Or find someone on your forums willing to do it for you, then just add them as an admin to the FB page (not the forums)
I guess you are right about that way being way too spammy, specially if its a big forum. Will give it a go with just a few posts, thanks for your help.
I have built a forum with a totally different format to the usual layout but am finding it difficult to get members to interact. Does anyone have any tips. My site is bongal dot com. Sorry I cant post links yet.