I have recently created a forum and on the verge of launching it. The topic of the forum is global warming and climate change and it has innovative ways to combat global warming. It has contest and events etc. Well i am low on advertising budget. I also don't have many threads to start of it. Should i have some 50 threads before launching or i should let the poster make them from start? What kind of contest should i keep so that less users can play but still have to visit frequently? What more should i do for the users to stay as threads are less and there can't keep them coming everyday? What are ways of advertising the forum cheaply and getting quality and like mined people to the forum. Please help as i am new to all this and am pretty scared. Thanks in advance
In order to get real people posting on your forums you have to put content up there already. No one is going to join a forum that is blank. You can hire a forum posting service that will create that content for you or you can do it yourself by making a bunch of accounts, threads, and posts and talk to yourself.
I started a movie forum a couple of months ago and paid to have people post and interact on it. As soon as the budget ran out for the paid posters, so did the posts. The forum is dead as a dodo - I haven't mastered the art of starting a forum yet!
it's hard to start a first time, but my suggest you can make a contest about your forum,.... account give away, hosting or similiar to people join and posting on your forum,.... but before you invite another user that would be nice if you make at least a few post on your forum not just a blank forum.... that suck, when user know they on forum that empty thread they not come back again trust me...
I think the key is being active on your forums - as stated above you need to start by posting some useful content, but then you need to engage in others' conversations too. Try to encourage users to post with experience/credits points and the like. Try to have a couple of busy-looking forums rather than spreading threads sparsely across lots of forums, as users won't sign up if your forums look abandoned.
I don`t agree with you. You don`t have to buy paid forum license. MyBB is a lot better. You can find many mods and they can be installed a lot easier without any modifications. BTW it is a good idea to hire some posters. If you need help installing MyBB let me know, I can do it very cheap.
vBulletin allows more easy administrative responsibilities like easy advertisement placements, and a better user CP.
If you starting forums newly then i prefer to start with open source! forum script they are free and most of them allows good features! it can save your big investment
Before you start any kind of contest or heavy marketing you gonna need good content that others would love to read. Then you gonna need to find some people who can help you. Then you can run the contests. Thats my thoughts.
yes I am a forum poster and notice that forums get much higher seo and traffic after original content is put on. But forum take time and experience, sometimes 1-2 years+.
Should i have some 50 threads before launching or i should let the poster make them from start? Yes as many thread as possible to not let it look empty. What kind of contest should i keep so that less users can play but still have to visit frequently? Let set the rule to the contest such as only paid member can play the contest. What more should i do for the users to stay as threads are less and there can't keep them coming everyday? Offer the such as $0.10/post they post in the thread. What are ways of advertising the forum cheaply and getting quality and like mined people to the forum. The cheapest is by submit to directory and blog commenting.
The above comments about MyBB vs vBulletin are a bit...silly. Your choice on forum application depends on your userbase and your requirements - don't go and buy vBulletin if all you need is a basic package and the modifications available for a free piece of software (e.g. MyBB, phpBB, SMF, etc). I do like MyBB, but I found the modifications for it too limiting for what I was trying to do. The base of it also lacked many features present in vBulletin; particularly relating to social interaction and forum permissions. I used to use it before we bought vBulletin and made the leap of completely reorganising our business forums (would link you, can't yet ). As I said, it all depends on your own needs.
You must contain some post on it before advertising. Because when any user found your forum empty they will never revisit your forum.
Try building at least 50 useful backlinks to your forum. Do not launch an empty forum. Make soem good number of threads. Join in relevant forums and use sig. spots to gain traffic. Later buy sig. links and paid blog posts or article submission. Be active on the forum. Make a group of at least 10people who can post 10posts a day without fail for the next 1month. Make the URLs SEO friendly and wait for the magic to happen All the best.
To echo whats been said No-one wants to join an empty forum. You need content, artificial content (where you pay someone to do it) or otherwsie. As has also been said, get some signature advertisement and try to get some backlinks. Best of luck - starting a forum isn't easy!
If the niche you are pursuing is worth the forum then there is no need to pay people to post. If you build it, they will come. If you build it and there is no need for it, they will never come.
Today is hard to make a successful forum I think your only chance to succeed is to offer some service and atach a forum to it, so you get real people talking about a real thing. You can grow from that.
To be fair, I think your subject, climate change is a good one, certainly it has potential and isn't like thousands of other sites. Any chance you could get some original content on there? That'll attract people too