the main think i do for my forum is to put the link in my sig on all the forums i use and then make sure to post alot so i have my link on alot of sites many times then i have done link exchanges with many ppl and also have done some banner ads on some sites. as of now i only have one banner up but i had 2 for awhile. and thats pretty much how i am promoting my forum. google has been pretty good to me so far i get about 200 some people to come from searching at google so far this month. which isnt huge but it helps and if you didnt know i run programmingforums.org

Is that the same think you did to build up Linux Forums?

i didnt build linux forums its a guy i know who runs it. but he jst recently bought linuxforums. he did it that way with elitelinux.com and that was at 3000 members with in its first year when he merged it with linuxforums.org. and linuxforums.org the guy who owned the before never promoted it, it jst grew he was lucky it had a good domain name and ppl jst kept showing up
but yeah the guy who runs linuxforums now that is how he promoted the site before but now he is paying money to promote on sites like distrowatch.com and other big sites

Hi! I'm relavitely a newbie at all of this (if not I probably wouldn't have started two groups, one in Yahoo and one in MSN.) I'll just give you my two cents about what's working for me. I don't have a lot of members on either one, but nice things are happening, people chat, people email, share, I get messages. So the stuff is moving, which is what I want. I wouldn't want to have hundreds of names and no visitors nor activity.
I do these simple things. 1. Every week I post a special feature (an article for example) that gets everybody talking, and giving their opinion.
2. I offer freebies (like ebooks)
Last week a lady that heads another group for strokees (recovering victims of stroke), joined my grup at Yahoo and passed our address and ebook to her members! If you offer stuff people need or want, they'll come.
3. Every now and then I send each member our "Occasional" Newsletter, which, since it doesn't come out all the time and I try to pack with useful and great stuff, to them, is something special. I have had people sign into my mailing list through Veggies Unite just to get the Occasional Newsletter (knowing it will be a special thing that comes along only several times a year.)
Brainstorm, come up with something that other forums of your type are not doing. For example, for me as an inexperienced user, it was quite devastating to be invaded by malaware and ad-ware, why not put out a e-newsletter every now and then warning your members about "latest" thread, how to recognize de symptoms and get rid of the malady. Something that will make you unique and will make people flock to your forum, saying, "they've got the stuff I need." Or tell their friends, "Go to such and such forum and you'll find the answer to that." My sister got me to join DaniWeb. Never forget the power of human promos! Hope this helps.
Take care!

Wow thanks Will do!!!

A couple of more ideas. Since yours is a techie forum, you can make some flyers that are really snazzy and go to your local high school or local collegue and try to find out if you can pass them on to the students that are really into the Internet but would like to learn more about computers. YOu can suggest that they could save money on repairs, etc. if they learn how to do some things by themselves. . .you know what you can offer at your spot. OFFER it! Even seniors could sign on, leave some at the senior center, too. There's people who want to be online but don't know the first thing about it! Offer some articles with simple tips about making your way through the Internet something that will draw newbies to you. And you can have other things for people with more knowledge, etc. Graduate the information for beginners, intermediates and compter savvy and you can attract from all corners of the compas. Teach others every chance you get, and word will get around that you're an expert and you can direct them to your forum. Talk to the head librarian at your local library, maybe if you make some bookmarkers they'll let you place them at the counter for the people to take. Never despise offline promos, they can help you too!
I wish you the best!

I have a small team of promoters to help me out and i just try to get the link across as many other forums as i can, myspace has been good to me, fast and east to advertise on, search engine submissions haven't really done much for me yet but heh i'm only 3 days in so i don't suppose i can expect them to and for 3 days i have over 2000 posts and 57 members which isn't a bad start if you ask me.

Hi everyone I am new to this forum and find this place very interesting especially the topic of forum promoting. I do have a forum and do not even know where to start. It is all created with a few topics that I plan to add more. I need new members to participate. The forum can be found here << url snipped to compy with forum pollicy - no site specific talk please >>

Since your site is technical, you might also consider participating in a few relevant Usenet groups. There is also MSN and Yahoo! groups, but some of them are pretty quiet and I don't find them to be as cutting-edge as the Usenet groups.

I assume you have submitted your site to directories, specifically, forum directories.

Having a few links in del.icio.us helps too, as well as similar social bookmarking sites.

Do you have a blog? You might consider starting one. Make sure it includes links to your forum. Then submit the blog to blog listings with the appropriate tags--another base covered.

Regarding the forum itself: try to ensure all posts get a response. When I see a forum with a lot of posts without responses, I drift away.

Regards,


David