How do you fill a forum?

If you launch a membership site and one of the features on that site is a forum, I was wondering if you guys would start your forum with no activity, or is it more advantageous to have some type of posts in your forum before people join the membership because people tend to be more attracted to a forum that is "active?"

And, if that's the case, how do you get forum traffic going to do that if you are just launching the site? I hope my question is making sense

RJ

 

Aprt from the obvious which is advertise etc - buy a forum posting service - think a few ppl offer it here

 

Thanks Ronmac,

That is helpful. I never heard of a forum posting service. I'd like to find out more about how that works exactly. Thanks again.

RJ

 

Focus on a unique and prospect nicke .
Have some useful posts in the forum .
Promote the site in sns site .
Try to make members generate content and stay as long as possible in the forum .

 

I do paid forum postings. Completed nearly 2000+ paid forum postings till date.

Anyhow, the thing is, there are many effective ways to bring traffic to a site and make it successful. But when considering a forum, even if you bring paid traffic, and spend much for the traffic, it will be in vein as the forum will be new always until some one starts posting.

Who will start posting? I see the forum, and it is new. I'll not be interested in posting. The next person comes. Again, he won't post for the same reason. So, have some forum posters for some days. Because of the activities they create, other people will take part in discussion and when the paid members disappear, others will take care of.

 

@icpathi, can't agree more. And the fact is the paid posters should be hired as soon as you have decided to launch your forum and only after you have conducted your research about opening the forum, like if it has a potential and will people visit it even if it has posts and has some sort of paid activity. Paid posters are also used to create a forum content which helps to rank the forum in SERPs for diffrent keywords, if your main website has a lot of traffic and it's interested to see a forum, you don't have to worry about hiring too much of paid content.

 

I'd start by making a few posts myself - set up a couple of accounts other than the admin one, and start posting with those. Rope in some friends, and set the tone of the forum together. Once you've done that, hire a paid posting service to help fill up the board.

Then promote, promote, promote. Run contests, submit interesting threads to bookmarking sites, whatever you can think of.

It's very hard to get a forum off the ground, but if you keep pushing, eventually it will gain critical mass.

 

Paid forum postings, first time I read about that.You are getting paid to post for someone else, is this a way to spam forums or how does it work? Tell me more.

 

You can create false accounts and create your own posts.

Creating a forum is the hardest venture by far. I have a 8+ year old site with a forum, and to this day, it only gets about 1 post per week (or every 2 weeks), even though the site gets about 300 uniques per day.

 

I can do paid posting service aswell...so if u need posting service, you might wanna PM me

 

Not like that. There are many websites providing this service. But most are expensive. Here in DP, people directly hire members to post in their new forums.

It is not like spamming. First of all, we should not disclose that we are paid to post in forums. If posts are like 'cool', 'great', 'I like it, thanks' and so on. Then those posts are just spamming. But forum posters who have experience will not post in such manner. Often the rule is, 20 words per single post. Not all post can be 20 words as it will look odd to always post 20 words while chatting. But 20 words per post in average is good post. And should be relative to the topic and forum. After all, what else will the forum owner expect for his penny?

 

I agree with you in some points that, forum posters are also hired for SERPs. And I never said no. I just missed to cover that point. And again in the next point, I agree if we have good traffic for the main site, then it would be easy to build our forum. But the traffic should be really good. I know many sites that have traffic for the main sites but closed their forum as forum receives no traffic. You know? A site with good traffic but no forum activity will make its audience feel as if the site is not doing well. Just consider Markn26's post. He receives a nice traffic of 300 uniques a day that comes upto 9000 views monthly. This traffic is ok. But still his forum is not doing good. Thats why I said that the site should have REALLY good traffic.

If you are offering some kind of support in your forum, then you need not bother about developing the forum, people who face issues, will automatically come to your forum.

 

Ask yourself this question, "what makes you post on forums"? It is simple, at least for me, if there is quality content and information on the forum and a good discussion I always post.

In order to fill your forum you will have to make sure that you provide this content to your members and potential wanna be members.

Make sure that you have thought provoking, helpful and quality threads. If the forum is empty no one will post or start a thread. That is why you need a a group of friend or a team, maybe your staff to populate the forum and create some useful content for people to read and eventually they will start posting, adding and sharing their knowledge.

 

Another tip, don't create to much sub-forums/category(?) just take 1/2 main category. Because what will look better, 10 categorys with 10 topics per category or one with 100?

Leroy H.

 

All of that is really good advice everyone! Also, I'll be touching base with a couple of you guys that provide that posting service once we get a little closer to our launch. How much lead time do you guys typically recommend/need?

RJ

 

Offer things other sites can't as most are the same now

 

thank, it is nice. how long it will takes to get some good number of active members?

 

I think it would be good to invite a group of your friends to start the forums up, then when it gets bigger, more people will come. But at this point of time, I'm still working on my forum's activity as well, so I'm in no position to give you a good advice.

 

Here's an idea I haven't heard mentioned yet: Partner with a site in your niche that doesn't have a forum. Talk with a webmaster of an established site and offer to run a sister forum for free. This way you solve a problem for a site that wants to build a community and you can target members new members easily.

 

Filling a forum is very difficult.

It is horse before the cart. Like has been said here, you have to have member and quality discussions and people do not join until there is.

If everyone joined and made a post the same day, then they would find many others would also join because the forum is busy.

Try running a forum posting competition. That seemed to get me quite a bit of threads and posts.

Now like you though, I am waiting for others to join and expand the forum daily.

We have a good forum. Come and join today, even if just to give your site some promotion.