One of my favourite methods for promoting a new site is to create an online message board where my readers and visitors can talk about both my site and my niche in general. Creating a forum isn't that difficult form a technical point of view but making it popular is. Here are a few tips to help.
When you start a new forum obviously you have no members and thus no content. This is a catch 22 situation as no-one wants to sign up to a forum with no posts, so at the start you are going to have to both create and reply to posts yourself. This can sound pretty tedious but it's the only way until you get more popular.
If your forum is attached to your main website or blog then it is going to have a general theme surrounding it. People will often ask you questions in posts on this theme and even though you may not have an exact answer it's important to at least point people in the right direction, members really appreciate it.
A great way to promote your message board is to talk about it on your main blog or website. However don't just mention that you have a forum instead tell people that you will sometimes post new info there first ahead of your blog. Some people are desperate to be the first to know and you can use this to your advantage.
Spam is a real problem for most forums and it can take a lot of time removing fake members and their content. These members are usually created by bots so it's important to have a difficult captcha that people have to get right before signing up. I also try to monitor new member's posts just to see if they are trying to drop links all the time.
Patience is another attribute you're going to need if you want to create a really successful community, because building up enough members to where the forum is self-sustaining can take months of work. Once you do get big though you can usually get senior members to moderate for you and this is when you can sit back and reap the rewards.
When you start a new forum obviously you have no members and thus no content. This is a catch 22 situation as no-one wants to sign up to a forum with no posts, so at the start you are going to have to both create and reply to posts yourself. This can sound pretty tedious but it's the only way until you get more popular.
If your forum is attached to your main website or blog then it is going to have a general theme surrounding it. People will often ask you questions in posts on this theme and even though you may not have an exact answer it's important to at least point people in the right direction, members really appreciate it.
A great way to promote your message board is to talk about it on your main blog or website. However don't just mention that you have a forum instead tell people that you will sometimes post new info there first ahead of your blog. Some people are desperate to be the first to know and you can use this to your advantage.
Spam is a real problem for most forums and it can take a lot of time removing fake members and their content. These members are usually created by bots so it's important to have a difficult captcha that people have to get right before signing up. I also try to monitor new member's posts just to see if they are trying to drop links all the time.
Patience is another attribute you're going to need if you want to create a really successful community, because building up enough members to where the forum is self-sustaining can take months of work. Once you do get big though you can usually get senior members to moderate for you and this is when you can sit back and reap the rewards.
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