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[allenscott]

Hi all, I have recently opened up my own forum and have found out that it's not as easy as it sounds to get new members.  I mean I can get a lot of hits but who wants to join an empty forum? Thought of a couple of tricks to do so like not letting visitors see the forum but I have seen it posted that this too can backfire on you.  I've been switching themes as well to see if one gets more results than the other.

Also there is the problem of members not posting.  It seems to me if you join a forum you would want to at least set up your profile and introduce yourself.  I know I do when I join a forum.  I have sent emails asking them to participate and telling them of the reward they can have by doing so as well as how it helps out the forum growth and how that affects them.  I just don't understand it.

Can anybody explain these things to me and give me a couple pointers?

[Lisa Preston]

If you have associates who are experts in certain areas, ask them to post in the forum under the appropriate area or even make it easier and ask them to post a recent blog post they wrote. If there are "perks" to being a member, like discounts or freebies, use that as incentive to join. Post some extremely informative posts and tweet them, blog them, Digg them... get the link out there. Ask a question that people can discuss or answer.

As for the other question from before... you can't post links anywhere here until you have 5 QUALITY POSTS. It's right in the top of every forum here. It's also bad taste to post a link to another forum.

[bluecactus]

You could also try hiring a team of people to populate your empty forum and get it started.  Of course, they have to sound like they're "real people" asking real questions, otherwise your forum would come off as fake and spam-y.  Not the most straightforward of ways to get a forum going, but it has worked before.