Member Avatar for n2ads

I have developed a forum online for people to talk about movies. I have gone to another forum and tried to promote it and I get bashed by the other members for doing so. Cany anyone offer me advice on how to gain members for my community?
Thank you.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by joeychgo

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For : a compact, practical plan that avoids the “post-and-run” problem others warned about.

Start by seeding the forum with 30–50 high-quality, evergreen threads so new arrivals see value immediately. Create several “pillar” pieces (deep director profiles, genre primers, scene dissections) and model the posting format—use a review template that separates spoiler-free takeaways from spoiler sections. Pin a short, prompt-driven “Introduce yourself” thread with three easy prompts to lower the social friction.

Improve first-visit experience and retention. Make navigation and topic discovery obvious (genre filters, “new member” panel, trending threads). Use lightweight onboarding—social sign-in or 2-field registration, an automated welcome message that points to 3 starter threads, and small reputation triggers (first-post badge, highlight next steps). Add clear spoiler-handling conventions and a visible moderation policy to keep discussions friendly and useful.

Make content easy to share and discover: add Open Graph tags for clean social previews (ogp.me) and consider structured markup for forum posts so search engines and link previews understand discussion content (see schema.org/DiscussionForumPosting). Run occasional anchor events—monthly themed watch-alongs, guest AMAs with local critics or film students, or curated watchlists—that create moments to invite new members.

Measure and iterate. Track which threads attract signups and which keep people coming back (basic retention/DAU-MAU), and use Search Console / SEO basics to capture long-tail film queries (Google’s SEO starter guide). This complements the community-minded advice from and and the traffic ideas noted by : raw numbers help, but sustainable growth comes from content, onboarding, and a few repeatable events.

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Member Avatar for Stewart

First bit of advice is don't do what you've just done. The reason for this horrible method is that:

  1. It highlights you as a spammer/nuisance to the site;
  2. It demonstrates that you have no interest in their site;
  3. It looks as if you are trying to poach their members for your site.

If you are a member of another forum that permits links in signatures then put your link in your signature. Stay at the forum, get to know the people, and contribute - they'll then see that you are not only interested in your site and members, in my experience, are quite happy to share their time with your forum.

Put your forum in a few link directories (such as DMOZ) too.

Member Avatar for JJ___

Wise words from a wise Stew...

art.

Member Avatar for Zachery

Tell your friends, put a link in your sig and find other forums of your intrest and hope it perks people into joining.

Member Avatar for joeychgo

you can also buy some advertising - Google Adwords is a pretty good method for this.

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