What are some good tips to jumpstarting a forum. I guess I could invite some friends to get the ball rolling, but meh... don't see it happening. What are some ways you guys have jumpstarted your forums? thanks!
Put up articles and information as "conversation starters" on the forum, and post on other forums related to your site. Don't be blatant but use your signature well. You could always pay for adwords but I'd wait until you have a small community going and a reasonable amount of content. Sarah
I have a relatively new Sales and Marketing forum and here are a few of ways I've driven traffic to the site: Press Releases Article Submission Signature Links Coop Ad Network Directory Submissions Forum Posts Link Exchanges Pay Per Click [PPC]
Yup, bribes always work well If you have some spare cash, I've seen quite a few people get 5 or 10 people to signup, and make 30 posts or so and pay them $5 or $10 for it. You could also do the same for signups, if you created some referal system.. like maybe the person would get paid 50 cents for each person that signs up and makes at least 10 posts. But for free ways.. just put the URL out there on any existing forums that you can find and its allowed by in the forum rules. Especially forums of simaler topics, as you'll know the users will be interested in the subject. Josh
Hehe.. it deffinatly works. I got paid $10 (I think) for posting 100 posts on computing-forums.com (I think).. it was a while ago. But it deffinatly got his forum started. If you do want to do that, don't advertise you're doing it on your forum. Put a post here or on another simaler forum. If you say that people are getting paid to post on your forum, all your existing members and future members will probably bug you to death asking to get paid too. Josh
Well if you can put on 250 articles of clothing you could do a slow strip tease, piece by piece.........
Depending on what the site is about, I'd give away stuff to the most prolific posters. If its a video game site, give away 12 free PSPs (1/month) for the top poster in that month (xx posts minimum or something). Do a press release to that effect too.
Thats a good idea... nddb, or anyone else.. I do a lot of incentive-based posting in any type of tech-related forum.. so if you'd like me to do some just PM me or something. Doesn't have to be much. Every little bit counts Josh
The forum is pretty site specific (doctors, medical, diseases), http://www.nddb.net/forums/ I don't think it would appeal to a broad audience, but no one signs up for it, perhaps I should just drop it. I figure a community that keeps coming back is better than a post and never see it again type of site though. But it is very specific, but I figure at least someone small percentage of people who hit the site will hit the forum, but they don't, very odd. The ideas are great, sadly beyond my means. A give away of some type would be quite nice. =) Perhaps someday.
I think you need to lead them on what they should be posting about - until it gets going at least. I saw it and couldn't work out what I'd put in.
sarahk, Thanks =) (Dr. Death... yikes.) I thought I'd keep it general, coz I've been a part of a lot of forums, and it tends to go all over the place, there's only so much you can say on one subject, and people stay, so I thought I'd keep it broad. But you think it should be more specific? Should I break it up into more specific forums or just make the descriptions more specific?
You have 3 forums General Discussion Political / Social Discussion Site Discussion Now I'd change the name of site discussion to something like "lets talk doctors" and I'd make it the first forum in the list After all, I come to your site primarily for the medical info not for the chatter. Then you want to be adding threads every so often that are relevant to your topic. You certainly don't want me filling it up with dr death type stuff. I'm assuming the "national" means usa so that's quite a scope. You need to look at how specific you want the info to be. Time2Dine has a forum which lists every restaurant in the main cities. Maintaining that list is a big job but you may want to consider something like that with a poll for each surgery. Or focus on things like "breast cancer awareness week" and post relevant info and links to other sites. Sarah
I was going to post some other stuff in here but didn't want to get it lost in the other info so have started this thread http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=18679 take a look, it's relevant Sarah