I have a site related to open source software. 3 months back, I installed a CMS and forum software. I did not promote the forums and they still have zero posts I have belief in these forum ideas. Once operational, they will provide valuable advise to open source users. Here is the question: I cannot hire anybody yet and can't spend more than couple of hours on these forums, as the site still needs lot of content development time. Should I just take off these forums for now or Promote them a bit and they will be self-sustaining? I have little idea on what it takes to run forums. Please advise.
I run several large forums myself. and a few hours of work a week is not possible to make a forum go. You need to spend more time on it. You could look into someone joining you and helping you get it going. I would promote the forum and try and spend as much time as possible on it. I would be willing to partner up with you if interested.
divide the forum into subforums, invite people of different niche, tell them they can put their own ads in their subforums and just be active, i think this should do the trick, nobody's gonna post on ur site unless its something they cant really find across on the internet. Run a contest and promote the contest by this u would be promoting ur site wrapped under the prize of the contest. You and ur frds have to be really active on that forum. But most importantly dont start a forum unless u think u are an expert of the category ur forum belongs to, as i have seen lots of people startin forums for the heck of it.