Techniques to get a new forum off the ground.

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Charlie

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Jon has proved that offering various contests is a great way to get a forum off to a great start. Here are various ways I can think of of getting a new forum started. Some of these will work better for tech orientated sites where users are forum familiar, others will possibly work better in a more general environment:

Competitions and prises. See above, but refferals, posts and threads can all be kick started by offering specific targets with meaningful prizes. Ongoing competitions can help keep visitors coming back after the initial flurry.

Posting Services. Pay to post services can add a number of threads and posts in a short timeframe. There is nothing worse than an unactive forum to stop people posting.

Post exchange. Agree to post on a friends forum in exchange for them posting on yours.

Setting up multiple users. You end up having conversations with yourself, but at least you always win the argument.

If the forum is on the back of a content site, make regular references to the forum and encourage people to post there.

Have an explanation and guide for not forum savvy visitors to help them get started

Anyone with other ideas?
 


Give me a few days, and I'll post my 'Guide to Traffic', it'll cover general sites, but i'll make special mention to forums :)
 
Dave said:
Give me a few days, and I'll post my 'Guide to Traffic', it'll cover general sites, but i'll make special mention to forums :)
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Great idea Dave! This in itself is a good way to get a forum off the ground if people see that you have helpful members willing to donate their time for your own good. :)
 
ITALIA said:
Great idea Dave! This in itself is a good way to get a forum off the ground if people see that you have helpful members willing to donate their time for your own good. :)
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Glad you've actually given me a positive message for once :cool:
Thanks!
 
ITALIA said:
No worries. Do you have any other guides in mind for the future?
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My mind is a huge beehive, and each bee is writing their own article :cool:

back on topic, for vBulletin there is a 'Proxy' plugin, and it makes it a lot easier for mods/admins to post under different usernames/identities. fair useful for some.
 
Dave said:
My mind is a huge beehive, and each bee is writing their own article :cool:

back on topic, for vBulletin there is a 'Proxy' plugin, and it makes it a lot easier for mods/admins to post under different usernames/identities. fair useful for some.
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Cool. Hope to see more articles from you soon!

I've also seen a few vBulletin / IPD plugins similar to this, they can be useful for getting the fundamentals of your forum off the ground, but they can become a bit of a nuissance.
 
What worked for me on one of my forums was a type of post exchange, except I didn't have to post back on their forums.

I simply offered scripts, backlinks and more, for posts on my forum.
 
Charlie said:
Setting up multiple users. You end up having conversations with yourself, but at least you always win the argument.
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I always regarded this as the least appealing option but in the past days on this forum I have learned how much I can post with the proper motivation. If I would be tabbing between 4 browsers, talking to myself it would even faster too.
 
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