Get friends, family members, co-workers, everyone you know to register and post. When people show up at your forum and see lots of posting they are liable to stick around and register, if they see no postings or very few they just move on. Paid forums postings can help populate your forum, but nothing beats legit users. Use paid forums postings very carefully. A little goes a long way.

Make a good, interesting and well designed forum and the traffic will come!

Did I miss it? What kind of rewards can be offered via a forum that will work?

That's a great suggestion to get your friends to be your forum posters...I think that paying someone too just is not as effective. Meaning that if they really are not interested in what is being discussed, the posts will reflect that.

I heard its a cheap service and they asking to many things before doing the job.But its not a scam.

Why not first start a blog, build traffic and when you have a decent traffic start the forum?
You will need more time to start a forum alone, building traffic and posting....years problably.

Originally Posted by willcode4beer

Some of the best advice regarding forums I've seen in a while

Best advise i've ever seen we were thinking of running competitions like this great post mate.

Originally Posted by tehfincheh

Some alternatives to pay-per-post (which I personally detest):

1. Run a competition with a desirable reward.

It's better to target people who share the interest of the forum and give a one-off reward to the best poster as decided by the admins. This way you'll still get plenty of posts, but they'll be of quality rather than quantity.

Make sure your reward far outweighs what they'd normally get with a pay-for-post deal.

2. Pay for referrals.

Run a competition to see who can get the most referrals in a month. Make the prizes desirable, of course. By doing this, you'll be leveraging the viral power of all your members in a pyramid scheme. And it can work quickly.

Be sure to check for fake registrations and offer a second tier of prizes. Premium member subscriptions, discounts, etc...

Sorry i ment this was the best advise i'd ever seen great post.

Originally Posted by Bat 21

Did I miss it? What kind of rewards can be offered via a forum that will work?

Lots IE.money, goods like new MP-3 Player or mobile phone the list goes on.