Hello from TheFilmForums.com

[mephistel]

Hi,

I'm a recently unemployed software test engineer that's looking to learn a bit more about internet marketing and methods to creating better websites which will gain more interest from the public.

I've recently created a forum where people can go to discuss film topics (thefilmforums.com) and I'm looking at ways to improve this in terms of looks, features and popularity

If anyone else here has good experience in this, your advise would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks and looking forward to being part of the community :)

[seanstevens]

Hello and welcome to the forum. Best of luck with the site.

[BusinessIdeas]

Hi,

I'm a recently unemployed software test engineer that's looking to learn a bit more about internet marketing and methods to creating better websites which will gain more interest from the public.

I've recently created a forum where people can go to discuss film topics (thefilmforums.com) and I'm looking at ways to improve this in terms of looks, features and popularity

If anyone else here has good experience in this, your advise would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks and looking forward to being part of the community :)
Hiya, what platform does you forum run on? Mine uses smf and I have just installed a great mod that indentifies known spammers and prevents their registration - Gina :)

[mephistel]

Hiya,

Yeah mine runs on SMF, but I have no idea to even attract people to my forum yet, any ideas of good ways to get it out to the public?

Thanks

[BusinessIdeas]

Well where do I start? It is a chicken and egg situation I'm afraid, people wont join unless you have already got members who post interesting content and you wont get those without having members already.
No-one wants to join an empty forum! Getting it established is one of the most difficult things that you can imagine, it is time consuming, and frustrating in the extreme. You are looking at a very long term project and you need passion and commitment to make it work. One way of starting it off is to get your friends and relatives to join and post. There are people who will post on fora for a fee but I really dont recommend this at all. I was fortunate enough to have quite a few business contacts who were interested enough in my business to join at an early stage, otherwise I dont think I would have gotten anywhere.

Everyone told me that I would not succeed with my forum and after a whole year and nearly 1000 members it is still too early to know if they were right or not! :D

If you can find other forums and article sites related to your niche and use signatures and comments with a link to your forum to get traffic to your site then that is probably the most cost effective way of proceeding, otherwise if you have deep pockets you could use Pay per Click. After that prepare for long hours and resign yourself to the fact that infinite patience will be required to make a success of it.

[lucy*tenable]

Hi.....welcome to the forum! :)