I have a forum on my website and I'm wondering what's the best way to quickly populate it with regular users. It seems like a catch-22. Without people already involved in the forum, why would anyone want to participate in the forum? But I need people to participate so that other people want to join. What's the most effective (and preferrably low-cost or no-cost) way to populate a website forum?
first make sure its little interesting for your visitor, if think so then make an offer for you visitors,like link share, valued membership, follow there twitter profile, if possible gift a small amount of cash or popular book, pdf, or video tutorial and etc, i think these are not so bad
It seems to me to make sure the threads are similar to other forums in your market . Get many moderators that like running forums. Controversy is helpful.
Contact all of your friends and ask them to join. This includes your virtual friends as well as your real life friends. The more friends you have helping with the project, the easier its going to be to jump start your forum.
Actually make some interesting topics that are not elsewhere on the internet.Then only people come and visit and also discuss if they want.