Populating a forum with posts

Discussion in 'Forum Management' started by Seobiznezz, Aug 19, 2006.

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  1. #1
    What is the easiest way to populate a forum so people stay?

    Yes, I know the usual way of posting yourself etc. but Is there other ways?

    Scraping etc.

    I can see it being very hard to start a forum in the year 2006.
     
    Seobiznezz, Aug 19, 2006 IP
  2. American

    American Guest

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    #2
    Get your friends to join... The only way a user will stay is if there is something going on... Also, start off by posting news articles; this really helps get a bunch of keywords on your pages to help your search engine rank. Get contests going; maybe a referrer contest. Add an arcade. Make it as user-friendly as possible. Ensure the registration process is working, especially if you require e-mail validation. Join a link exchange/web ring. Join other forums and have a link to your current forum in your signature.

    That should help you get members slowly... Once you get 500+ they will start referring others and the user count will go way up.

    Best of luck!
     
    American, Aug 19, 2006 IP
  3. kyoku2

    kyoku2 Peon

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    #3
    Also have a fun category where people can have some laughs, open discussion, multimedia etc..
     
    kyoku2, Aug 20, 2006 IP
  4. amitpatel_3001

    amitpatel_3001 Results Follow Patience

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    #4
    amitpatel_3001, Aug 20, 2006 IP
  5. sebastya

    sebastya Well-Known Member

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    #5
    I think you need to look at the competition...(e.g. if you are making a webmaster forum, look at DP and Webmaster-Talk) and see what they're doing right.
     
    sebastya, Aug 20, 2006 IP
  6. jawinn

    jawinn Active Member

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    #6
    My advice, contests. Have several. Also have forum games. Dumb games that have people posting constantly.

    My longest thread in one of my forums is a game I made up about movies. The forum is about a small time sport and totally unrealted to movies. The game works like this. Some one throws out a movie line and if some one else knows the movie they post the name of the movie and a new line. People love dumb stuff like this.
     
    jawinn, Aug 20, 2006 IP
  7. Seobiznezz

    Seobiznezz Peon

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    #7
    So I guess I have to do it the normal legit way.

    I was told that there were ways to scrape content and place it in the new forum.

    Can anyone comment on this? Yes, I know its frowned upon but is it possible to do that to get the ball rolling?

    Anyone starting a forum in 2006 is in a major disadvantage so we need all the help we can get.
     
    Seobiznezz, Aug 20, 2006 IP
  8. Arkserver

    Arkserver Banned

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    #8
    Like autoposter?
     
    Arkserver, Aug 20, 2006 IP
  9. jawinn

    jawinn Active Member

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    #9
    Yes. Besides if you scraped a bunch of content from somewhere, anyone worth having as a member will smell this tactic and leave.
     
    jawinn, Aug 20, 2006 IP