Jumpstarting a Forum

[padma]

I've got a pretty popular website consisting of some guides and decent content that has a forum with absolutely zero traffic. I now have a plan of using the forum, I just don't have any good ideas on how to breath life into it. Does anyone have any tips?

Thanks

[RoCkMaN]

You can hire forum posters to jump start any forum. I have done so before with a HOCKEY forum of mine. Works great. Here's an article and a few links to help you out.

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Benefits-of-Hiring-Forum-Posters&id=59561

[officer_dibble]

I'd consider adding links to your articles eg Discuss xxxx in our forum. This has worked well for one of the sites I work on.

I've seen some news sites that automatically post their latest news into their forum which seems to give fresh content for forum only people to comment on (once it gets going - some people will only visit your forum).

Otherwise as a moderator - be prepared to work at it. Post links to interesting articles (not necessarily on your own site), get friends to participate and invite people you've sold stuff to talk about their experiences, feature or react to conversations on your site or email newsletters, encourage and respond to anyone who posts to start with.

One thing I learned too - don't create too many sub boards early on - it's hard to reach critical mass (and the community will let you know when you need to split out boards). It's better to let these appear organically. I'd consider cutting yours down to 4 or 5 (General, Training, Nutrition & Supplements and Events).