Digg works wonders. I started my blog in April of 2006. There was someone else who started his blog at the same time. One of his posts was dugg, his traffic exploded and has never gone down since.
Well i would suggest you to build content. Add to DIGG that will be a fuel for you.. Add your blog to directories, add to social bookmarks for extra backlinks and traffic. Put a link on your signature on all the forums you are registered. Post quality articles thats wht visitors want. Good luck
Write a press release, submit your forum to website and forum directories. Have a blog, update it regularly, use feedburner, technorati for blog promotion. Write 10 articles a month and submit it to article directories. Use social bookmarking to submit the article that you feel people will like. Follow the other forum/sites in your niche, and ask for link exchanging. Write a free report on the hot topic in your niche and give it free. Promote that report. Thus for promoting directly, you must promote indirectly which in turn helps in getting more eyeballs to your forum/site. If your forum has low postings and low members you can hire people to post on your forms. Visit forumshock.com