How do you get a new forum going?

Any Ideas I can use please

[dazz]

Ive just started a forum on my site. It gets fairly good hits (about 5000+ page views per day). Ive just added a forum onto the site and wondered if you guys have any ideas of how to get it 'going'.

Im going to mention it on the site alot and put it in our news letter but as people tend to 'lurk' alot....how do I get it active so there is some feedback to some of the 1st posts I put on?

Im trying to get some early posts up and hope people respond but with it being brand new people have to register to post and im worried that I could be flogging a dead horse!

Has anyone experienced setting up a new forum on their site? How did you get it going?

Thanks for any advice!

ps if Bretts listening.....how did you do it? lol ;)

dazz

[EliteWeb]

This is how I get forums going.

Have lots of links to the forum on your site first of all. But to get chat and talk going on the forum I post questions, and answer my own questions under a different name. Sometimes I post as guest or whatnot. But I create the generic traffic for it during the first period. Make people feel like they can answer questions so leave the simple ones open.

Start discussion on things between you login accounts and keep it going. :P people dont like posting to an empty board.

I ONLY do this for the first month. After that its picked up so I dont need to do it anymore.

[HoloC76]

I have been begging my friends to post to help get mine started, but they are too lazy - ;) I am going to have to get myself a few more user names and start posting with them all, because my forum slow getting off its feet.
I think it helps to have creative/detailed headings and descriptions, too, to get people thinking...

[Staffa]

You could also visit a few other forums where they allow to post a request for 'postings barter'.

[Shakil]

Eliteweb answered the question.

I was involved in a forum about 2 years ago.

The first 50 posts were made by us under different nicknames and topics, once this had been done, then the forum really took off.

actually is that not what is still happening here, and that WebmasterWorld is still trying to raise awareness

(bad joke, sorry)

Shak

[sun818]

When people write me questions via e-mail, I publish their e-mail (minus the domain name) and their question. Then I reply with an answer. I also reply to their e-mail and ask them to visit the forum.

[jackofalltrades]

I have to agree with all the above points.

Internal marketing to raise awareness of your forum helps to get people there.

I run an article based site on various issues in a particullar industry - i post a link to a thread ive started on the topic of the article at the end of each one.

Also getting mates to post helps.

I tried a post barter forum, but all that happened was that people registered, posted a message and never returned and noone responded to their messages.

Its a slow process, but its one of these things you just need to build up over time.

JOAT

ps never tried posting under a different username - it always seemed, well...a bit lonely. :)

Dont get me wrong though - im gonna try it!