Hi, I did the following things: - I announced and linked it in my topic-related blog - I have put it in signatures of other forums like this one - I did exchanges with other forum owners - and I work on it every day to create new content, remove spam and keep a friendly and welcoming environment. My newest forum (about blogging, link in signature) is only around a month old, but it has over 30 members and 100 posts already. The exchanges I did with other forum ownlers, the promotion I did in blogging communities and an announcement on twitter that got retweeted where most effective to launch that site.
Start a chat room for your forum on IRC Watermark images with a link to your forum post them all over the place Watermark videos with a link to your forum upload them to dailymotion Ever time you send a email add a link to your forum at the end on the email Spam usenet with posts about your forum Use a good back link service Spam yahoo groups with info about your forum be sure to join groups that have 1000+ members
This advise seems like just getting your link out everywhere, seems like a lot of hard work with little reward
Post count which most of the forum admin run after is useless in long run. You can easily increase post count by add "What song you are listening right now?" but it wouldn't add any value to your forums. Get quality content. Set up referral for members i.e. if someone refers more then 10 members to your forums then give it out % discount in your VIP membership. Both have worked fine for my forum.
Word of Mouth advertising Free coupons / freebies would surely help Constant advertising on all important places Ensuring that the forum is easy to use (I mean user interface is cool)
Find something to motivate others to promote your forum for you. They need to have some benefit for doing so. And on your side, yes apply some advices in this thread, basically be a sales representative of your forum. Don't go as far as tatooing your forum url on your forehead but you get the general idea.