Can anyone offer some insight as to what the best strategies are for promoting community- or user-driven sites? I'm talking about sites where your content is a function of your users, like forums or social-news type sites. At this point, I find myself adding and rating most of my content myself, so there's not really a community feel which would attract new users. I find that linking specific stories from my site in forums will generate a lot of one-time traffic, but I really need to establish consistent visitors and users who will participate and in turn grow the site. Any thoughts?
Yes I need help with forums too. Most of the people posting are the ones that joined early in the beggining. I find no one wants to post?
Determine who your core users would be, the ones that would most likely LOVE your site. Get them hooked, let them do your additional marketing
Have you given thought to starting a blog as well? It encourages participation, the content is always refresh and it's great for SEO.