Best way to gain members?

[TbgX]

Just wandering if anyone knows the best ways to get members to my new forum?

Address is in the signature!

Any constructive criticism is great!

[dslackman]

There are many techniques you could use, but I think backlinking is a pretty straight forward way of doing it.

A couple of months ago I used backlinking to successfully build a web site's membership. The client paid for 3 weeks of backlinking and I added 650 members.

Good luck,

[joshuaeric]

Forums are a bit difficult.

It takes time.

One of the things I have noticed is that it takes a couple people posting daily to even have a chance.

I ran a forum years ago and I had to respond to people and post new threads daily for months on end before I gained any traction.

It is hard to write posts when nobody is reading them.

But that is what it takes.

[Encrypted]

I agree with the above 100%. It takes a lot of time and patience and having a few people that post daily is a must.

[joshuaeric]

WHT and Sitepoint, two huge forums, had expert evangelist users posting constantly.

WHT had this one guy that could answer any server question you threw at him within minutes. It was crazy. I used to frequent that forum constantly just because of the wealth of information this one guy was giving.

I even remember giving him access to my cpanel account and having him fix an AWSTATS problem I was having. I couldn't believe it.

That is a good start though, either you be that guy, or you find him and get him on your forums.

Maybe give him a box of twinkies a week or something.

It could be a girl too. Girls like twinkies just as much as guys I think!

[sweetfranky]

I know this sounds horrible but the best way is hire some sock puppets to go in there and start posting content. Also you might want to offer prizes.

[rubsync]

There are many techniques you could use, but I think backlinking is a pretty straight forward way of doing it.

I agree! And there are lots of ways to create back links. Here are some of them:

article submission
classified ads
blog commenting
forum posting
press release
online groups
link exchange
social bookmarking and networking

[Encrypted]

Just wandering if anyone knows the best ways to get members to my new forum?

Address is in the signature!

Any constructive criticism is great!

Get your friends to join. You need a solid base of consistent posters to get anything serious going.

[JBSurfs]

You need plenty of content on other sites. Articles leading to your site.

Also, offer something free that others want. Something searchable like a free workout or free building plans or free way to unlock an iphone. Something that is searchable that others will want. Best to fit to your website's target audience.

[veikoh]

I think teens are not much using search engine to seek "teen forum". Better use Facebook and Myspace to advertise yourself and your forum.