Hey, I am wanting to get a forum going which would be sports based and was wondering if anyone could give me few pointers on how to get users. I am wanting to stay away from paid posters but if necessary I may use them one day. I understand that forums are very hard to get going at the start but any help is greatly appreciated.
Be like me and get lucky, my latest forum I got a great group of hyped up individuals working hard to bring new members in. If you know even a few people who are active on the subject, make them mobs and perhaps they can bring new members in for you
If you can gather your friends online and offline, give them some "power" and start the discussions always start with few threads. Dont be greedy and creating 3858357 categories which will give the forum LARGE & EMPTY feel. Start small, allow some noncategorized threads to be opened under subforums. Only add on new categories or forums when demand increases. Its better to hire posters initially and not later. Hire now and let them post to give your forum an active feel. Keep hiring and at second round after getting good amount of posts, start advertising that way new comers will get a feel of active members (the hire posters) and they will be happy to register start contests and give away at the beginning to gather visitors. General FORUM 101
You need to keep your forum actively,people like actively forum and much willing to register on actively forum.
I don't think you can avoid paid posters when starting up, promote your forum in social bookmarking sites and also in other forums that are related to yours.
Thanks for all the info everyone. I'm guessing the number one way to get it going is having a lot of patience as well right?
Are there many sports forums, you might not have a hard time getting members if there aren't too many - one thing you can do is once you get it up go to as many forums as you can and ask members to review it.