How Do You Jumpstart A New Forum?
 

Just wondering if any of you run a forum and what you did in the beginning to get it going. I'm finding it hard to get mine jump started....

bump for a interesting thread.

Post actual information. Don't be spammy. Add real content relevant to the topic. It may take a few years to get some serious(over 100k unique with no skim) traffic to the point where it is on auto pilot.

indians ?

Get Tranza's outsource team to get it going

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

http://www.forumbooster.net
http://www.forumspecialists.com

steal questions and answers from Yahoo! Answers and have a script create new ysers for you based on the yahoo info

http://www.google.com/search?q=ico-c...ient=firefox-a

it is more work than it is worth, unless you really find a niche that is not being served already, but even then you need to put alot of time into it and forums are not the best when it comes to revenues unless you are a tight niche with a big audience


if you really love your subject and can spend time writing posts every day to get it going then maybe

Honestly man, I have dealt with a ton of these different forum posting services, and they are all awful. The majority of the time they just cause you more work going through and deleting all of their unintelligible posts. Really they are all just middlemen, and you can go directly to DP (I still don't know if I can post a link to that particular forum or not) and hire posters yourself cheaper.

Just go to DP and start a thread in the content creation section offering paid forum posting for 10 cents a post, and make it known you will only accept posters that speak and write proper English, as well as have some knowledge of the niche of your forum. You will get way more offers than you can handle, and when you pick out some decent posters, ask them to register on your forum and do a few test posts so you can gauge if they are usable. Also make sure to specify a word minimum per post and specify how many threads and replies you want...

- make fake "vip area"
- make fake profiles that will be posting fresh content
- make some fake contest, fake profile can "win" membership few times ...
- mod rew every link
- make threads with good keywords
- update the threads with good keywords
- put shoutbox in the top of forum
- put last post and top posts module in top of your forum
- post "rapidshare links are deleted by owners requests" in your rulez

:thumbsup

Just one thing...CONTENT.

I cannot understate how important it is for you to build content. If people see a ghost town, then they will not feel comfortable posting. So start building!

biggest mistake almost all make is create 50000 different categories, when you start out have one forum thats it one place where everyone posts, and dont email people when someone replies to their thread force them to come back and see the replies, this will increase the chance of them seeing another topic they can reply too.

The chances of getting a forum going to any big numbers in these days are slim to none

You post on mine I'll post on yours?

In Russia, forums jumpstart you.

:2 cents:

What he said ^^

register fake users , make fake posts.

Have a contest with a big grand prize then award it to yourself. " best thread wins 10,000 cash " then go spam that thread on other forums as if it were a scam and your just a dupe surfer looking for advice.

"hey guys i was visiting my favourite forum "boozerchat" and i noticed they were giving away 10k for the best thread, why doesnt this forum have a cool contest like that"

do you want the GFY database ?

:thumbsup:thumbsup

Sure. What's yours?

I used them many times in the past and they did a good job for me.

Both of these services are a waste of time. I used them for a non-adult forum i have and it's just a waste.

ForumBooster just refunded me on PP two days ago.

We gave away VISA and Amazon gift cards every month.

live suicide. :2 cents:

Heres an idea, post your link at GFY everyday.

good luck.. btw, this one is crap... no one even visits gfy...

Ive used a forum boosting service before and was pretty happy with their service. The trick is to get a core group of "moderators or whatever" that post and get things started.

there's plenty of scrapers and bots out there for boosting a forum up. scraping yahoo answers is a reliable route. feeding your forum via rss is another. fill the sucker up with related content then bring in the outsourced posters. and KEEP THEM GOING. it's a long term thing. you need your forum to look active over a good period of time. people attract more people. good content is key.

Well, if you want to mirror how GFY got started and how it got huge, you should focus on RECRUITING THE RIGHT PEOPLE. Just like in real life, forums work on INFLUENCE. If you recruit the right person, like a BONEPRONE or some other person who has a lot of friends in a particular social circle, their circle comes with them gradually and buzz builds. This is true of whether you're building a wm forum, a forex forum, a WOW forum, or whatever. Forums are SOCIAL so they mirror SOCIAL dynamics. It's all about influence.

So my suggestions are:

1) Find a niche where you know people with influence. How? Go to social networks and find people who have a lot of clout--example: Xeni Jardin of BB has a ton of clout. Give them a REASON for 'hanging out' at your forum Build an IM rolodex of people that fit this bill.

2) Give those people MOD powers to shape and sculpt the forum to their personality.

3) Seed the forum with strategically placed threads that lets the "forum celebrities" shine

4) Install VBSEO or other similar search engine optimization package for forums

5) Hit the rolodex carefully--updating them of what's going on.

Gradually it will build until you hit a Turning point and the forum takes on a life of its own.

Seems like too much work? Not really if you do it right. The latest forum to do this right is a mainstream forum that blew up fairly quickly due to the reputations of its initial members.

In forums, INFLUENCE is the only thing that matters..... unless your forum is really a microniche Adsense farm. In that case, I have another set of guidelines based on what I've observed :)

Good luck to you and NEVER EVER SURRENDER!

Good stuff. just was talking about building a forum 20 min. ago. I have the concept. It will be pretty good . I know a lot of directors, producers and porn stars (because i shoot a lot). I have a pretty defined plan of attack with concepts detailed. It will have a function and a purpose which is very key.


I will have a section for uploading porn BTS and BTS set photos( which i already have a lot of). Because i shoot a lot, i can get girls up there plugging there sites and projects. If there are real girls there, it would seem to bring fans and other people.


Im in the discussion and planning stages right now. I already have a couple of places that will be able to feed it traffic from.


I have to close friends that are programers and are pretty good with making anything i can think of. They made Strongthread.com and with no promotions, it is getting 3,000 hits a day.:2 cents:




Always welcome ideas that people would like to see implemented.:thumbsup

Many people seem to recommend Yahoo Answers. What are their TOS? Is content hosted by Yahoo Answers released under creative commons license so anyone can freely use it?

Create groups or pages as many social networks as you can

Great stuff in here so far. Thanks a lot.

hit me up lets do that:winkwink:

If anyone is into sailing we just started a new sailing forum. No GFY BS though!

uncensoredsailing.com

We would be willing to make posts on other new forums for in exchange the same too.

Does that mean JonClark won't be joining?

Basically yes! :1orglaugh


One of the things we did was to create a voting off the boat procedure, we are just waiting to test it! Everyone gets a say in the voting off of someone else.

this sounds about right. :)

This is what I did with my forum. (nearly 16.000 members now)

1: Post a good number of new threads everyday from different username. Make it look like a popular forum. :P

2: Send the forum a lot of traffic, in the same niche of course.

Anyone need some posters for their forum let me know. Ill have people post there for free if I can post my own galleries there. Email me your forums to paymealot at gmail. :D

Throw money at it.