I have a forum stockhideout.com we have posters but what can i do to increase members and posting on the site?
Try writing some articles relevant to your site, and submitting them to various article directories. Add links to your site to free link directories, such as those here http://info.vilesilencer.com Maybe write a blog for the site also. One thing some forum owners do is initially pay someone to make posts to make the forum appear to be more active. I don't really have an opinion on that, but it may be useful. Another idea is find other forums that are on subjects related to yours, and allow advertisements, and promote your forum there.
I agree writing a relevant article about your product and posting it on as many forums as possible should do the trick.
this one need budget though. also pay per post is quite costly and not really effective especially when you got a bad quality poster. they will just post crap. writing articles is a good ways but need time and efforts try to start the thread yourself and put some activity to let the member participate. also can do like referral prize for member that can get most new members.
Some forums make their recent posts into an RSS feed, others allow feeds to be used as a source of new posts. The first can help get your forum spread more widely, the second creates a bit more activity.
Try starting a contest.. most posts wins _____ . You'll recieve lots of post because members will be competing for the prize.
Looks like you're doing well. You may want to work on the SEO of the forum. Another idea is to add del.icio.us and digg (and whatever else) so that it automatically is listed within each thread (making it easy for users to select your site). I haven't done it with Vb, put I'm sure the code is around if you do a google search.
I am a Admin (Owner)of a new forum I have had up..I could help be active on yours if you were active on mine . It's in my signature Webmaster community
] To ensure content, if you are using vB then set the minimum characters per post to something like 150. It will help with decent content, especially if you are cracking down on crap posts like:I agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Post exchanges I think are better then paid posting, as you can match the other persons quality rather then pay scale. Alternatively you could join your competing forums (or other related forums) and take the advice I talk about here: Forum Link Building tips (it's not just your signiture!)
I agree that post exchanges are a very good thing. Some paid posters just ding you with repeat content I have done many succesful post exchanges It helps everyone hehe.