Promoting a Forum

I'm currently setting up a new forum which is going to launch on January 1st.

Obviously with a forum there is a bit of a snowball effect. More users, more posts encouraging more users. So it's important to get a lot of users quickly I feel.

Has anyone had any experience launching a forum on it's own? Usually when I've setup forums they are an addon to a current site. But this is a forum which is free standing.

The forum is aimed at Teenagers.

So, how best would i go about promoting the forum so that on January 1st I'm in a good position to gain members?

 

Pay some forum posters to get a conversation started. Make sure people can find your site through a search engine. Once the posters get the conversation going other people with join in.

 

Can you be more specific about the content? What about teenagers?
I get that your target it "teenagers", but teenagers that do or like what?

Kinda basic, but you can check out this new thread:DP Forums traffic thread

 

Paying forum posters isn't the answer, although it can be part of the answer.

Have a look at this site for a bit more info about the positives and negatives of paid forum posting.

Jen

 

Teenagers with interests in business.

How much is a typical price to pay people to write on the blog?

 

Here are some more tips on how to start market a forum:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=998543

Thanks.

 

Without seeing a site its hard to judge, but for forum posts around $0.25-$0.40 was about average (For around 15 words), and around $0.60 per blog comment (For around 50 words).

Although the more posts you buy the cheaper it is.

Jen

 

Wot do you think about google adwords?

 

Google Adwords is a way of attracting traffic, however if there is no reason for people to stay around its pointless.

However an Adword campaign running at the same time as your forum posters can be effective as your getting traffic and fresh posts.

Jen

 

I'm teenager with interests in business. Where do i sign up

 

The way people seem to be doing it these days is they are using Paid Forum Posting services (for example, Fillmyforum.com) to generate some content and give it a sense of being established. You are right, unless there are other people on your forum (whether paid to be there or not), people won't feel compelled to register and start posting.

 

I'll sign up, what's the site?

 

The site is teen-entrepreneur.net.

Although the site won't open until tomorrow you can get a head start by signing up here: teen-entrepreneur.net/forum/index.php

I'd appreciate it if you could start making posts, topics etc that way it'll look busier when we launch tomorrow.

 

I would advertise on facebook and myspace and promote it at other forums like here, sitepoint, namepros, etc.

 

pay for members and referalls

 

A combination of all of the above will work ..

 

you posted at tsr a few days ago

 

good thread, i needed some help as well. if anybody wants to join my forum that would be great to
link is in sig

 

I opened my own forum with scratch and it's very hard when you don't know what you're doing but it gets easier over time check out my forum now (links in the sig) all of that from scratch! I would suggest targetting long tail keywords before taking on small keywords. Also don't waste all of your money on forum posters instead get it on SEO services and articles that helped me a lot.

 

Hahaha. I sure did.

Well todays the day it's going live. I think i'll concentrate on Social networking sites and similar forums to attract members. I'm gonna run a competition too and hopefully that'll attract the members.