Hello! I'm about to start an anime forum. I have already 99% of stuff ready to upload, I'm only waiting for header one designer is making for me and until I get the header I'm trying to scratch up as much quality content as I can. The thing that bugs me the most is how to promote totally new forum... I mean how to get there people and get them to register and start posting. The forum will be based on phpbb3 open source board script... as soon as I upload it, I will install also phpbb3 mod rewrite package. I have also prepared really nice skin for the forum. In addition, I have very simple and easy to remember domain name, so that should help a lot. I'm sure many of internet gurus here on DP have experience with starting new forum. I'd appreciate any tips you could give me. I have thought of few ways how to bring more people to my forum: 1) I could go on another huge anime forums and incidentally ask people to go look on my forum. The problem is that it could be misunderstood as spamming. 2) I have also though about some really interesting content that could lure some people there. For example, I have already prepared bunch of nice download links for recent anime series. People could be interested in those. 3) What about streaming anime videos on my forums? I'm sure that could bring many people there. The problem is, I would need some simple to implement video streaming script. The biggest problem (in my opinion) so far is how to get people to actually sign in and start posting. Should I create few dummy nicks and start talking with myself? Maybe I could ask some people on other anime related forums if they would like to be moderators on my new fresh forum? If I got like 10 people that are actually interested in anime & manga, I'm sure they could start some interesting threads and that could persuade accidental guests to register and join debates? Or I don't know... I'm sure someone here can give me some useful tips. Thanks in advance.
Well I had a huge ammount of trouble setting up my first forum. A few things you should know : 1) If you are just a forum.. no one will visit = no one will post, you must offer some other service and it must be fairly decent. 2) The easiest way to get people to post is to force them to , ie : Post 10 posts get access to a section etc. 3) Hire some paid posters to get your forum started, no one will post on an empty forum.. Well I hope this helps I didn't have this knowledge when I started my forum.. I wish I did XD.
Well, it will be just forum... but I will upload there lots of good stuff... download links to anime series, I will stream latest anime episodes, later I will upload also manga galleries and maybe more... So I think that might bring people there. I will just need them to register there and become active posters.
getting active posters won't be easy, even if you get visitors. Just make sure you customize your forum well and get some ppl to kick start it.
You can use ICO Content which pulls posts from Yahoo Answers and posts them in your forum. It builds an instant "busy forum". Not sure if it works on phpbb3, I know it works on vbulletin.
Most anime forums start with friends of the owner and massive MSN contact lists. It shouldn't be hard to get 20-40 members in the first couple of days. Anime forums are hard, downloads only go so far. If not done right, the forum will be filled with kids spamming up the place. Assuming you value quality. Unless it's a scanlation group's forum, I tend to avoid forums based around downloads.