How to get visitors to my forums?

[Azhy]

Hey guys

I've just launched a business forum myself and I wanted to ask what's the best way to promote it?
How can I make it active?
Where should I advertise?
Should I already spend money on it?

Thanks for your help!

 

[nitro23456]

Getting a new forum off the ground is very hard work, but not impossible. The trick is to make it look active as no one signs up to a forum where there is no discussion.

You could use a combination of things including paying people to post, offering something for free like a decent prize for the top poster after 2 months (you'll need to manage the spam though) and making several profiles yourself where you post and answer your own questions.

An active looking forum and lots of traffic is the key.

 

[Azhy]

Getting a new forum off the ground is very hard work, but not impossible. The trick is to make it look active as no one signs up to a forum where there is no discussion.

You could use a combination of things including paying people to post, offering something for free like a decent prize for the top poster after 2 months (you'll need to manage the spam though) and making several profiles yourself where you post and answer your own questions.

An active looking forum and lots of traffic is the key.

Thanks for your advice!

And yes we've made a little "contest" for people who register and make at least 35 posts and create at least 5 topics. Then at october 15th we will pik 3 members by chance and the first one we pik gets 75$, second one 15$ and third one 10$. What do you think?

 

[nitro23456]

Yep, something along those lines. Students are a good source of people who have a lot of time to waste posting and that sort of money would mean a lot to them so perhaps you could consider recruiting members from the local college/uni.

That part of it aside, you need to drive traffic to the site for it to perpetuate and continue from there.

 

[Azhy]

sounds good thanks

anything else I have to consider?

 

[domains]

Whatever the "niche" of the forum, find as many local businesses as you can and offer a nice "free" link on it for them!

Works most of the time, some will even upgrade to paid adverts if and when you get busy

 

[nitro23456]

I notice you are using phpbb as well, this will have its limitations long term. In the meantime you can adjust the cookie length on phpbb to leave people on the 'Who is online' list for longer so it appears busier.

 

[Azhy]

I notice you are using phpbb as well, this will have its limitations long term. In the meantime you can adjust the cookie length on phpbb to leave people on the 'Who is online' list for longer so it appears busier.

very nice idea will do! thanks

 

[StokedSEO]

You could come onto a busy forum and try throwing a link up......

 

[BlinkBrian]

You could come onto a busy forum and try throwing a link up......

http://discuss-business.com/

Looked on his profile

 

[BlinkBrian]

Also, create two facebook pages. One for members to discuss any topics that you may bring to the page linking to a thread for a deeper analysis of what is being said on the forum.

The second facebook page as an RSS feed for new posts so that members of the forum can see what new topics / replies have already been said.

Twitter is also good, use social bookmarking sites to link to popular topics.

 

[lovingit]

ive setup a two forums and they are extremely hard work to get off the ground. i actually made a few different guys and just kinda had conversations with myself. one was a good success but the other was really difficult and i also found them hard to monetize.

my advice would be tho to get a friend or someone involved. that or find someone else trying to get a forum off the ground and say you will post on each others forums for a while. i would advise it be someone who knew stuff about business tho as if folk come on and your talking about football or something theyll just leave.

p.s. to the poster who said that phpb has problems... what are these? if you dont mind me asking and why is vbulletin so much better?

 

[Azhy]

Also, create two facebook pages. One for members to discuss any topics that you may bring to the page linking to a thread for a deeper analysis of what is being said on the forum.

The second facebook page as an RSS feed for new posts so that members of the forum can see what new topics / replies have already been said.

Twitter is also good, use social bookmarking sites to link to popular topics.

Thanks for your advice! We already have a facebook page. We are going to register on twitter soon too.

 

[Ducky13]

Hi Azhy,

I can see that Facebook & Twitter have already been taken into account, but considering that you are starting a Business forum I would have thought that a LinkedIn profile or page would be very effective as well!

 

[robinsonstellar]

Hi,

This question is also in my mind to get the number of visitors, and you suggested the nice one.It is a good suggestion for everyone to implement while doing forums.