Strategy for growing a forum

Is the the dating forum that was posted a while ago?

When you say how do you make it a sticky?

Make what a stick this thread?

No I mean how do you make a forum sticky? How do you ensure that members come back each day? I laid out the questions I had in my post

Well first of all you should choose the type of forum VERY carefully.

No use in making a forum people already a place to post on.

Meaning if there are other forums that talk about the same thing you probably have very little chance of being successful.

I will answer #1. NO do not do that, It is dishonest and you will probably get caught.

I have started forums and sold them for many times the cost of starting them but they were started because people at one forum was asking for a different sort of forum.

So there was a need that was unmet. Same as you do with a company which sells products.



1. Should I make some fake accounts and post to and from these to make it look busy. No that is dishonest and you will get caught.

2. Should I run competitions and if so what? Yes you should. I have no idea what sort of forum it is so I have no way of knowing what would be a good match for your forum.

3. Should I allow non members to post in the early stages? Yes for sure.

4. How do I know when I have hit critical mass? I don't even know what that means.

5. Should I allow forum sig in order that people are insentivised to post to get backlinks? I don't know enough to comment on this.

Your help would be much appreciated.



What sort of forum is it?

I've seen places offering forum posting services. I think the object is to pay for members to make posts. I think it would depend on what kind of forum it's going to be.

1. I think this makes sense if you do it in an honest way. Research frequent questions from your niche and post extensive answers. Provide some real value, of course, do the same for the first people that pop in to post a question.

2. Wait until there are a few members, maybe run a competition for the thread with the highest votes. Don't make a competition on post count, that only encourages spammers.

3. I wouldn't do it, better make registration super-easy (facebook one-click signup, OpenId etc.)

4. Once the forum has the traffic you desire.

5. Yes, i think so, it's a fair deal. Maybe make a limit of 10 posts or so.