[Woodcs82]

I just started a FORUM for people with bipolar disorder,if you have a forum how did you build its user base?

Right now im working on PPC,creating posts,SEO, i may do some article submission.

If you have a forum how are you getting your user base.

Anyhow, the forum is www.diagnosedbipolar.com , if you have bipolar disorder or know someone who has it please check it out.

[EasyAutoSales]

Unfortunately w/o any activity, a lot of people will just come and go. You need to seed the forum somewhat with a few posts from a small group of people. Pose some questions, do a introduction section and get some participation first then start marketing it.

[Mega B]

Originally Posted by EasyAutoSales

Unfortunately w/o any activity, a lot of people will just come and go. You need to seed the forum somewhat with a few posts from a small group of people. Pose some questions, do a introduction section and get some participation first then start marketing it.

I would 2nd you on this post if you dont seed it and just leave it hoping that it will grow by its self you will be disapointed and usually two thing happen it just dies or spammers take over the site with links to porn sites etc.

At the moment i am seeding a new forum and i post under 10 differant member names but it is working and it will take time you dont get a forum to the size of YE in a few weeks

[zharlene]

Mega_B mentioned something that proves to be useful: Create multiple accounts and post as different people. Don't make it too obvious though.

You can also get your close friends to post in the forum if they have time, or pay a few forum posters to post in your forum.

Another way is to join every bipolar & general psychology/psychiatry community you can find online and leave links to your site on them. If you have an interesting article on your forum, you can post the link on these communities. If these communities allow you to have links on your signature, then that's where you should have your link.

You can also write articles that introduces bipolar individuals and the things they go through, and post these articles on press-release sites as well as article directories.

[delsauzo]

All the suggestions above are pretty cool but there's one way thats not really mentioned. Have been working on a series for online business startups on my blog, so I did a bit of research into this.

There's a really easy way to do this. If you're using VB for your forum, there's this plugin that gets you posts from yahoo answers and helps you kickstart your forum with useful posts (based on the key words you provide), the plugin is called ICO-content and can be found by just doing a general search on google. the other alternative is the www (.) jetconvo (.) com option, which can be used for PHPBB , SMF and VBulletin too(I think they're from the same guys but I'm not sure). there's a free version and a paid version. I'll advise that you don't rely solely on these but that you leverage their ability to keep your forums content fresh. Good luck and hope this was helpful

[Mega B]

delsauzo as i have set up the Forums with the phpBBv3 platform i dont think it has that built in function that VB has but i have located 3 add on's that do this function and 2 are free and do the job but the 3rd option is a payed version but it can be taylored to look less like a computer generated post and as a result i will be going down that route.

Here are the 3 links for filling out forum with automated posts:

Icy Phoenix Customizations :: Forum Integrated News Delivery
http://startrekguide.com/community/v...hp?f=88&t=1350

and the payed version.
Instadigi - Instant Community Content Solutions

Hope this helps someone

Mega.