What's the best way to launch a new forum site

What are the options

[Lobo]

Although I have a specific project in mind, this is more of a general interest question.

What is the best way to launch a new forum site?

Do you put it up and let people trickle in?

Do you set a launch date and promote pre-launch?

Is it really worth it to pay for advertising in the hope you can recoup later on?

In my case it is an area for public debate, so it seems pretty essential to have people in there debating :-)

In your experience what is the best way to build a community quickly?

I'm sure there must be some options better than others , can I open this question for debate ...

[AjiNIMC]

I do not think there is a general rule or mantra which works. If this is not your first forum then go for pre launch campaign using the existing forum platforms.

According to me the success of a forum lies with moderators, you need to talk to people online and offline for this post. If you can get a dozen of moderators in the initial phase it will work. They can keep posting new threads, involve other people and slowly you will see a participation.

[rogerd]

The Community Building Library [webmasterworld.com] has some good info on starting communities.

One key question is whether you have a built-in traffic source (e.g., you are adding a forum to a busy site) or are starting from zero (new forum on a new domain). The latter clearly takes more work.

[Lobo]

Yip, this is starting from scratch. no built in traffic...

The domains is decent, UK based..

As it is not up, or even there or developed at all, I'd just like to get it off the ground as I think it could work well as a debating forum.

I have done some research and think that contacting and going through university debate societies may give it a start...

But to have a national forum for public debate seems to me at least to have some legs...

Politics, society, science, religion .. etc .. all the aspects that come up in public debate and current interest through news items etc .. I think it has possibilities..

Just trying to figure out the best way to kick start it...

Apart from getting off me ass and building the forum of course ;-)

[edited by: Lobo at 11:47 am (utc) on Nov. 28, 2006]

[edited by: rogerd at 5:56 pm (utc) on Nov. 28, 2006]
[edit reason] no URLs, please [/edit]

[rogerd]

For a brand new domain, you'll have to drive traffic to it. Here are a few techniques that you might apply judiciously:

- posting in other forums (where such posts are acceptable)
- posting on blogs (ditto)
- paid search or content ads
- paid ads or links on specific websites
- soliciting free links on appropriate websites
- press release(s)

There are really two major hurdles: driving the traffic to the site, and then turning the maximum number of visitors into members.