How many users/posts do i need?

Hi, wondering about opening my first forum( automotive probably). SO at first i will do post by myself+exchange or maybe buy posts. So my question is when is that time when forum will be rolling by itself.

 

There's no magical number. Some forums start working with 5 very active members and other need 10000 members .. you cannot place a number .. You just need to have constant new topics and members and keep it up. I have over 20000 posts in my forum and still cannot say i got the ball rolling

 

Ok i see, thats still good information you posted. So when did the "real" forum members start registering at your forum? Of course they did notwhen there were 50 or 200 posts i think. And where were they comming from? search engines? I think forums are good for search engines, since when you got posts you got some spider food for search engines

 

If I were to start a forum on a certain subject, I would also make a news blog on that subject and try and promote the news, and in the news promote the forum with stuff like "discuss this in our forums!(link)" at the bottom of every article.

 

good idea, but i need to have high traffic on that site. What other ways to promote my new forum. And i am interested to know-can i expect some decent new members joining my forum from search engines?

 

I will do post echange with you if you want.
you really need 30-100 posts a day before it starts moving on your own steam.

my forum is http://darksat.x47.net

 

yes i would like exchange, i will pm you when i open my forum.
So, darksat, where are new members comming from to your forum? I mean you have that 30-100 posts a day, but you need new members. Search engines?

 

Just post new and fresh content and someday your site will attract more people

 

still my question is: how about new members from search engines? Where are most new members comming from?

 

We get them from our university. But i doubt its going to help you.
Basicly our site is the default page when a student uses a webbrowser on one of the comps.

 

yes that wont work for me I am just wondering if i post/exchange lots of posts and nobody genuine will signup that would be bad Thats why i am asking if there will be some genuine forum members from search engines

 

I got a lot of my members from other forums, I have about a dozen regular users and I only started a couple of months ago.
I am ranking in the serps but its mainly spammers and the occasional user who sticks around for a couple of specific questions.
My Rep as an IT & SEO specialist is what brings in a lot of users.

 

One thing about this game, is that you cannot predict anything. That magical time will come on its own, and thus cannot be predicted.

 

Darksat> so how you get users from other forums? I mean i would not like you comming to my forum and promoting your own forum

 

True. What im afraid is to spend lots of time on daily posting/exchanges and get no genuine members at all

 

I've always been extremely confident with my advertising techniques, and that's because they've been a personal approach to my target audience, rather than a broad one.

Instead of displaying banner advertisements (which in my opinion are only useful for branding), I used signature links.

Google Adwords also attracted some impressions, and conversions, surprisingly.

But the tool that won me the biggest influx of members was controversy.

It got people talking on competing forums about my community, and had them visiting my site to discover what the fuss was about. After visiting, a good percentage of them decided to sign up and even became active members.

 

how did you create the controversy on other forums?

 

I didn't create it at all, it came to me - and I loved it.

To cut an extremely long story short, we had an issue with a few members from a competing forum running a muck, so we banned them. Everyone had their own version of events, and they decided to rant on about it over there.

Needless to say, they did us an excellent favor. We had a whole lot of visitors from that site, and a good chunk signed up and became active after discovering that we were superior to the competitor.

Any publicity is good publicity.

However, as I say to everyone who asks me this very same question, having a active community before engaging in advertising is paramount. Whether it is a post exchange or paid posting, you need some activity to entice members to join.

Would you join a community with three members and one post?

 

true. The posting and post exchanging is easy. the real work starts when you need to get real members. And its not easy since this will be my first forum

 

If you like, shoot me a PM with your MSN handle or email address and I can help you through getting the forum up and running.