promoting a message forum

First off, you have to learn how to make it so others can FIND it when they want to.

I am not sure it you have a message forum, or your own message board that you created. From your message above, it sounds like you created one, but only problem is, you didn't specify where it is either in signature info or in your profile... Kinda limiting your exposure aren't you?

Matt

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I think he/she has a UBB but I'm not sure, I think i might have seen him/her around UBBCHH

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Thomas Minton
The JavaScript Place
Get paid $20 - $160 an hour for viewing adverts

Okay, my bulletin board is not a UBB, I decided i wanted a free bulletin board with almost all the same features.

My message forum is at www.jediliz.net/boardpower/boardpower.cgi

I want to know how I can get people interested in posting there.
I'm sorry I didn't make that clear before.

I've got the same problem as you at the moment.

No one wants to post in the board.

I guess the best advice I can give you it to post some messages in there yourself so that people can reply to them.

A message board is like a chat room, if no one is in there, no one will stay, When I had a look I saw that no one had posted, and I'm (like everyone else on the net) the type of person that does not want to talk to an empty room.

get some posts in there yourself, maybe under diffrent names so it lookes like you have more than just you posting in there, and when people come they will see that people are using it.

I hope this helps.

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Dan
The Eerie Network

Dropping in some leading posts can get your forum going, but make sure you have a different IP address each time you post to your own forum, if your forum displays the posters' IP addresses. While no one wants to be the first to post, there is always someone who is willing to be the first to get bent out of shape if you are obviously replying to yourself (i.e., the IP addresses for supposedly different posters match).

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I was in the same position as yourself. I also had a UBB using Boardpower and I even managed to get 4 people to become moderators for my site. I started posting info myself and asked the other moderators questions but because there were so few posts in the forums I don't think even the moderators visited the site to moderate their forums so I decided to remove the UBB until I have a decent site with plenty of traffic each day before I decide to put up another UBB.

Personally I think it's best to wait until you have a lot of decent content on your site and are receiving a lot of traffic before you start a UBB and start to promote it. If you do get enough visitors make sure that the UBB is promoted well on each page on your site.

That's my $0.02 anyway.

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KeithMcL
Soon to come,
webmasterswork.com

I agree! I wish I had waited until my site got decent content and traffic. My board is pretty stagnent as well. http://www.AffiliateBlunders.com I think the key is the traffic.

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I'll third that. You have to have the content first, which, by the looks of it, you don't have yet clueless. I would also suggest waiting until you have about 1000+ page views per day before even attempting to open one.

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Justin Stayton
· WEB: http://www.j.cx
· EMAIL: justin@j.cx
· ICQ: 45549000

My message forums are DEAD and I have 50,000+ page views per day! Traffic alone won't do it -- unfortunately, I don't know what will.

If you want to help out a webmaster in need, visit my site and my forums:

http://www.dumblaws.com/
http://www.dumblaws.com/board/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi

Sheer mass of visitors does not equal a vibrant, lively community. It takes more -- I'd be ever so appreciative if someone would tell me what I need to do!

Andy

Let’s face the simple facts. Unless you provide useful information which pertains to specific occupations, or vastly popular hobbies (i.e. web design) you are probably not going to find too many people looking to gossip. The only reason any of us are on this board in the first place is because we’re interested in web design. I would re-think the content of your web site, and decide weather a forum is appropriate. What ever you decide…put yourself into the mind of your targeted audience. The answer should come to you—and don’t give up to easily. Things develop over time.

Well, let me see. I visit a star wars site called TheForce.Net and it has a forum/message board. So do a few other star wars sites I visit.

I also don't have a decent contact form right now and its a way for people to keep in contact with me.

If I get content, people will visit and maybe check out my forum.

I know it takes content, and I am trying to get some. Its not that easy. Webmaster resource pages are easy to get content, but its not so easy for me. I just have a small site which is just a hobby. I don't have a lot of people helping me: its just me running my site.

Well here's an idea. Why not go around the other star wars site and ask if they all want to start a star wars forum and then all the sites would link to that one forum? I'm sure all the site combined would bring in enouhg people to post.

hehe i run by myself a medium sized star wars prequels site and forum (around 130+ members) along with other sites (around 11 sites) and you need to be constantly promoting your site/forums together and for each other

i don't think asking other starwars sites to join would work well if the other sites aren't into constant promotion of their own site/forums.... i have seen it happen a couple of sites join forums and everyone relaxes after a while and the forum falls dead..