This one is to all you who are currently running successful forums...

What have you done to promote them? What have been your success factors? We have just launched one - www.unitunes.com/forums , as part of our new site and are looking to entice new members...

help please....

good one....
anyone

Effective advertising is a key factor for any web site. Sometimes it is necessary to start out broad with the advertising and narrow it's scope as the forum grows. It may be especially important to let visitors know that you have a forum for support, information, entertainment (if applicable), etc.

Some advertising will be in your sig when you are at other forums. Some will be in your emails. You might want to exchange links wherever possible, or purchase some advertising on other successful sites. (We have good rates if you're interested. Just contact Tim!)

IMO, one of the best success factors is the forum leaders (admins and mods). They will help to stir interest and grow the forum. With good leaders, like we have and have had here, can also make a vast difference on how appealing the forum is.

Dave

good post Dave. that should be helpful, thanks!

Thanks Dave, I appretiate you sharing your thoughts. Is there anyone else running a successful forum?

Dave hit the nail on the head, quality people in the forum, keeping the conversation moving and keeping things lively is key to making it happen. If you don't have an interesting crowd that are knowledgeable about the topics, and spend time on the forum then it isn't going to work.

One other thing you may try in the advertising end is make a small button to place on all your members' sites linking back to you. See the BoG example here.

Try and keep the graphics simple and thus the file size small so you aren't creating any potential page load problems. The one pictured there is only 4.3 kb. Personally I would offer the code, rather than the graphic itself so that you can load the link with alt text optimized for keywords on your site. In that manner it helps people find you, and serves up a few brownie points in the SEO game.

try running contests on your forums. If you have a few extra bucks run a pay for post contest or pay per referral to the forums etc. This will bring in people who want to earn cash. I did it on my search engine forums to bring users back (make the site more sticky) and peopled seemed to really like the idea although unforunitly havnt had hte time to test the theory as i havn't worked on the forums since then

thanks everyone - good advice....

i am gearing up to launch a new competition on my site. Hopefully that will help....time will tell!

Word of mouth, spread it to your friends, and ask them to participate in the forum.

We are preparing scope for a forum on Winning Profits. So this is a great topic to discuss.

What I find, especially with mainstream forums is that there just isn't much traffic on them. I think if more business was done on the actual board, you would have a lot more activity. This means allowing the members to express their individuality by allowing avatars, reasonable banners in sigs etc. Look at the adult model for WM boards, these boards are very busy and there is a reason. With that type of traffic you can justify charging $1000 more a month for ad space. Just my 2cents