How to start a forum.

1) Hire forum posters
2) Create multiple accounts and login to post and have mass conversation with yourself


What kind of niche is it? Can I see the forum? I actually love forums and anything dealing with them! I may be able to help you out with this. Add me on skype if you would! You can get my id from my profile

If you decide to hire forum posters you can probably go to shorttask.com or odesk.com. Good Luck!!!

Good place to start is read about the 90 9 1 rule of forum participation (ignore the actual numbers, but its the principle that counts and the strategies that come from the principle)

Read this:
The 90-9-1 Principle Applied to Forums | Forum Doc

I saw a forum plugin that adds content from yahoo answers to make it look like people are using it. This might help get things started.

You'll get more readers (lurkers) than posters, but it will die early if there is nothing to read.

Kick starting a forum is not easy. You need lots and lots of quality posts and some loyal resident yackers that respond to everything to keep it going.

Paid posting is ok, it can work, but the posts are not that good. By itself that won't keep your forum going.

What you need is traffic to the forum. So get it in every directory, every place you can possibly get it.

You need mention in social networks and bookmarking sites. Make sure readers can add to those, but do it yourself or have a team do it regularly.

You need quality posts and information. If someone posts a question they need an answer. Make sure no post or questions goes unanswered.

A couple of top guru's as was mentioned can keep people coming back.

Limit the number of Forums so you don't have 120 forums on each topic with nothing posted in most of them. Perhaps two or three topics to start with is plenty with the main one being the Main or catch all topic.

I did this successfully. Start a contest for the most posts. Offer a quality prize at the end of the period. It keeps a few of them posting a LOT. You determine if a post qualifies. It can't be a simple.. "Nice post".. However... if you don't have real un-incentivized posts by the end of the contest, you'll posters will stop.

Did I mention put good information in the posts? While doing so, research keywords on your topic and make sure you have posts that contain each of your keywords in some subject. In other words do SEO on your forum.

Create posts that are controversial. There is nothing like a good fight to keep the post count up.

Make posts about top people in your field. The mention of John Reese in the internet marketing field : 1. gets attention because people are interested 2. Attracts John Reese to the forum because he has Alerts emailed every time his name is mentioned.

Make posts about products, etc. in your field for the same reasons.

Make posts about other forums in your field for the very same reasons.

Link to other forums in your field first, ask that they link back to you.

Join other forums in your field and make your signature that of your new forum. Make lots of useful posts over at these forums.

Offer products free in your field with a mention of your forum in the resources section. Use those free products to get a list. Offer it to others to add to their marketing as free bonus.

There are some ideas for you. I'm sure others have more.

Take this forum as your starting guide. It has very cleverly made talking points right from the get go with clearly marked sections. I know what to expect in each section. Next set rules for each section.

Now to get people into the forum - set up an advert everywhere - looking for forum moderators to volunteer for new forum. This may seem like a bizarre way to do it but I think it will make you find people with a passion for the topic to help you spread the word and others will come out of interest and low expectations as they know you are advertising a new forum.