Setting up forums/community

I have many times setup an online forum but always got no one or very less people registered. These forums were parts of websites but now I am thinking of a forum that is itself a complete website but not a part of a website.

1. Will this thing work good in terms of getting more registered and active users?
2. After a forum is setup what we can do to get some initially and then some more registered members?
3. Is this task easy of lots lots of effort is required for this?
4. How long this thing may take to get the things going and with how much effort daily?

Best regards,
Khurram

 

Promoting forums is very hard and requires lots of time and money. The best ways to do it is to hire some posters first...

 

ok, You introduced me with a new possibility. And how and from where these people can be found? And what are the costs?

Any other thoughts on this and other possibilities?

 

Find cheap posters this forum, or search for freelancers - a site I like is getafreelancer.com.

The payment? It is usually really low, something like for example $10 for 100 posts or so.

 

ITs hard to keep a community constently active. Sure you can get it active for a few months then it can die off quickly

 

I have a forum i run for my elder brother and its been dormant for ages.

Maybe i need to sort something out.

 

paid posts are a very good idea for a new forum

 

Try to remove the date feature on the forum. Nobody want to deal with preceived "aged" material. What does the date matter anyway, if you are not dealing with time sensitive issues?

Is is possible to use other forums content? I can't imagine there is a copyright issue...

 

I do not recommend hiring paid posters because they only stay as long as you pay them and it really does nothing to bring people to your forum. I have built a few forums with many active members myself and the best advice I can give you is find some people (3-5) that you know are very interested in the niche of your message board and get them posting like crazy. The next thing you need to do is either put up just cash through paypal or find some great prizes related to your niche and do a contest such as you need minimum 20 posts to be entered and this will get you 10-20 people with 20 posts each and then 5 might stay around etc and keep doing this as well as build backlinks and whatever else you need to do. It is all about just creating a community atmosphere and providing threads that are conversation starters.

 

This has been discussed elsewhere in the forum.

 

It is hard work and can take years...

 

The forum needs good contents to begin with and forum posters play a major role during the initial phase of the forum. Once your forum has enough active members and good contents, it can survive on its own. To reach such a stage, hard work is the magic word...

 

Thanks all.

What I can conclude after seeing all above posts is,
- In starting hire some posters,
- Than get some dedicated posters
- Motivate members with contests and prizes etc

Please come up with more ideas and comment on above ones.

Also forums on which topics are more likely to get popular with less efforts?

thanks.

 

Before setting up a forum, i advise that you write up a slight business plan.

I would include all finance infrormation (I.E. Hosting and Domain costs, Forum Posting/Competition costs, Advertising, ETC) , Your Niche' (Target Market) , Search Engine Optimization stratergy, ETC...

There are so many things, just think of it as a business and plan it all out.

Mike