giuys whats the best way to populate a new forum? of course you can invite your friends over but what about the general public?
Easiest way is to get some paid for posting people to start off your forum. It's best to have some threads and posts in your forum so newer people can join it (people don't tend to join forums that are completely empty)
This worked like a charm in my gaming forum. I created a VIP section and offered it to people with only 50+ posts. I let them see the threads, but not the information within. Make the stuff inside hard to get and worth their time and they will post.
As others have mentioned, pay for posting, network with other forums that make sense with what you're doing, keep your forums active, don't have too many forums initially, and on and on.
If the initial posts are of good quality, many people will join.People seem to like highly interactive and constantly updated posts on forums.You may also have to announce it at the appropriate social networking sites.