Some Methods for getting Activity on your New Forum
If you’ve made the decision to make a forum then I must warn you that you’re looking at a long road ahead and you can’t give up. It takes a little while to get a new forum off the ground, but once you do then it basically runs on autopilot and earns you money. There is no limit to how big a forum can become either and that’s the great thing about starting a forum. You might make nothing, but you might also become popular and make thousands of dollars. There is definitely some risk for you when starting a forum though because you need to buy a forum license and some tools for your forum. You’ll also need to purchase a design for your new forum so that it stands out from others. It can cost you anywhere from $200-$1000 to get a decent forum started, so you need to decide if you can risk that amount of money. There is no guarantee your forum will become successful which means that your money might go down the drain, but like in most things you need to spend some money to make some money. We’ll now take a look at some of the methods you can use to gain activity on your forums while it’s new.
Choose a Niche
Often when people make a forum they want to cater to every topic out there because they think it will bring them more traffic which isn’t the case. You should choose a niche for your forum and then from there start adding content that is on topic with the niche you chose. People aren’t going to join an empty forum so in the beginning you need to do a lot of the posting to get some information into the forum so that people have a reason to join.
Hire Guest Posters
There are some websites out there on the internet that have a staff of people who strictly post on peoples forums. This will cost you some money, but often you can find deals for as low as $.15 per post which is literally pennies. Of course these members won’t stay once there done there job, but it’s a good way to get some activity on the forums so it at least looks busy. Also don’t hire just one person to do the work, you want as many different people doing small amounts of posts so that the member number increases. Don’t invest too much on forum posts, but spend a couple hundred bucks to get some activity on the forum.
Social Media
You can find hundreds of social media websites on the internet now and a few of them happen to be amongst the most popular websites on the internet. If you want to draw in some more forum members then you need to utilize these websites. You can do this by submitting your forum to social bookmarking websites with proper keywords, and also by submitting some viral videos on websites like Youtube. If your video becomes viral then you could generate a hundred or so members just from one video, so don’t overlook the power of social media.
Run a Contest
Running a contest will be a sure-fire way or you to increase the activity on your forums. Some people will only post while the contest is being run which sucks in a way, but there will be members who stick around if they like the forum.
All of these methods can bring in new members and make your forum look more active, but if the people don’t like the forum then it will be hard to keep them. You need to offer awesome information, have members post daily and a great theme before you ever make money on your forum. You will probably spend a year designing and building traffic for your forum, but once it’s active and moving then you can sit back and watch the money start rolling in.
