What should the first post in my new forum be like?

Welcome text or just an ordinary post?

[I Will Make It]

Hi there,

I run this site from Norway. I have no former experience from web communuities. One of the "attractions" on my site is the forum.

I have 2 Forum topics:
1. Gas Powered Model Airplanes
2. Electric Powered Model Airplanes

- What should I write to open these forums?
Some kind of "welcome to the forum" which seems a little bit strange to me, or should I just open with an ordinary post, asking a general question?

I would also like to have some opinions on how I best could get things kickstarted if there is something that could actually get a new community kickstarted..

Regards

[edited by: rogerd at 2:06 pm (utc) on July 9, 2007]

[thecoalman]

"Welcome to the new forum" or something similar sounds about right to me. Just post some information about what the forum is about, maybe a little about your site and yourself... etc Try to be personable.

To get people to use it is whole other story, if you already have traffic on your site you have half the battle won. Instead of two forums create few more, General Model discussion, maybe a polls section, Latest News, Off-topic or any others you can think of but don't go overboard. Maybe 6 or 7 at the most. 2 forums makes it look empty but 20 empty forums makes it look worse.

Seed them with some discussion, assuming your site is about model airplanes you must have some friends that can help you with this. Remember controversy is a good thing sometimes and will attract posters. Start a war over what type of plane is better. :)

[rogerd]

As thecoalman suggests, a "welcome" is fine, but to get people posting, start some threads on topics of interest to your readers. Topics like, "Which brand is best?" or "What is your dream plane?" would be good. Check out the community building library [webmasterworld.com] for helpful threads on starting and growing forums, Starting a Web Community [webmasterworld.com] is a good one.

[I Will Make It]

Thanks guys!

It doesn't seem like there should be a problem to get the users post in the forum. Yesterday I got 23 registrations from the adwords program, and 4 members have so far been active on the community. 2 members have started posting, and this has happened within 24 hours.. I think that's good news. What do you think?

My post here was placed on hold, I'm sure they did this because I told where you could find a link to site.. Thought that was ok, as long as i didn't link to it from here.

Just wish I could get some feedback on what to do next. As I said, the community has just started gaining a few members, and I don't want to make the mistakes which causes me to lose the few who are active.. I've read the community library posts, and I found much helpfull information there.

But my case is that I have a full community going, not only a forum. The members can actually do plenty of things, and "touch" the site, not only read it.. they can participate in everything from uploading pics, articles, reviews and crashstories. I have submitted 5-6 articles my self, just to have something to show for. They can send PM's, rate planes and so on..

So what do you think I should do next, promoting the whole community?

Regards,
IWMI

[edited by: rogerd at 12:19 am (utc) on July 10, 2007]

[I Will Make It]

Really?

No one?

[rogerd]

Have you tried everything in the Starting a New Community thread already? :)

External promotion should probably be a focus if you have things running fairly smoothly in the community itself - press release(s), forum postings (where allowed), blog comments (not spam), link or banner exchanges with related sites, purchased links for traffic, Adwords buys...