What's the best way to get people to post to my message board?

I've just started a new message board that is oriented toward high school and college filmmakers. How do I get people to start posting on the message board? After I get people posting, I would imagine the site would do okay...but how do I get people to start posting?

Check out the board at

http://farviewpoint.com/phpBB/index.php?sid=3d68efad327157abdd898c8aac77b32a

My main website is www.farviewpoint.com

Any recommendations you have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

Well if your not posting then no one else will so you must start posting like hell with good topics and leave then open to reply i.e what do you think or any ideas , on the end

You could also reg yourself several time and just talk to yourself until others jion in

I must be blind as could not see any links on your main page to your forum . If you what it to kick off then make your link stand out and site wide ( could use a banner ect ) just to kick start it

Is you main site getting traffic ??

 

I second Fishing's ideas... if nothing else talk to yourself for a while and build up the posts and responses. People will jump in eventually and you can phase out your alter-egos over time as membership grows. You have to make sure that you are getting traffic from somewhere though, of course.

 

One trick is to give yourself several user accounts intially, and rotate through them seeding content and discussion. Be sure to argue amongst yourself as well to get people worked up enough to want to join in!

 

A few tips -

1) If you have the option (such as with phpbb) create an RSS Feed for your forum, and submit it to all of the RSS directories on the net

2) Post links to your forum from the main pages - especially topical pages where you can link directly to specific categories (make sure they arent empty, though - nobody wants to be first!)

3) Find similar forums or email groups... and run a link to your forum in your sig. You'll want to contribute, not spam - but this is a great place to meet other "talkers"

4) Have an email list? Make sure you let them know about the forum

5) Be friendly/personable - and super involved


By the way, this: farviewpoint.com/phpBB/index.php?sid=3d68efad327157abdd898c8aac77b32a isnt the link to your forum. This is: farviewpoint.com/phpBB/

Always link to it the same

Final thought: if I were going to give advice on starting and managing a discussion forum, I would suggest that you take the focus OFF of revenue and make it as open and FUN as possible for your target market. Done right, you can use your forum as a very successful "relationship builder" and "lead generator". And this, in my opinion, can bring you MUCH better results than any type of revenue model you set up for the forum itself.