How do I gain popularity for my forum?

[kremo5le]

Hello everybody,

I wanted to ask you guys for tips on how to get audience for my forum. I'm really eager to boost free computer help through my site, and I wanted to get some ideas on how to have people coming to the forum.

What have you guys done?

Thank you very much beforehand,

[3dmagicaldesign]

I am having the same issue, I created my 3d Architectural forum this week http://www.3dmagicaldesigns.com/forum and I feel really stucked. I have started to make postings but I have realized that this kind of forum is not like web development forums ( when you can talk about many topics). I have started to send emails, invite people in many ways, at the moment I have only 6 members... I think it is a good start, my goal is to have at least 50 members by the end of October

[kremo5le]

Originally Posted by 3dmagicaldesign

I am having the same issue, I created my 3d Architectural forum this week http://www.3dmagicaldesigns.com/forum and I feel really stucked. I have started to make postings but I have realized that this kind of forum is not like web development forums ( when you can talk about many topics). I have started to send emails, invite people in many ways, at the moment I have only 6 members... I think it is a good start, my goal is to have at least 50 members by the end of October

Hey man, let's give each other a hand. I have many questions I can drop on your site and you can respond (real ones). Same thing with my forum. We could help each other this way. But very, very important,let's keep the questions real.

Let me know if this sounds good to you,

kRem

[3dmagicaldesign]

Ohh! I am deeply sorry, I know that I must have replied your question better but I am really having the same problem here and I really don't know what to do. This is the problem: I am not a real 3d developer expert, my sister and associates are. I am web marketing specialist and I try to apply as many WM techniques as possible to our business, my sister and the other architects don't have enough time to keep doing posts or even reviewing the forum, I think I will just post the link to the forum, will promote it a little and will wait for the people to come.

Again, please excuse me, I wish I could give a better answer, I didn't mean to distract the main goal of your post

[wetgravy]

forums are the hardest thing to get repeat readers on (this site is a good example of that ... ranked 1st in a google listing for "web design forum" but no one is on here)

Since you're operating a website first and forum second, it's almost a S.O.L. solution as well as it is not something that is popular like a game forum. first, get lots of tutorials on there, also ... you need to do alot of freebies (wall papers, scripts, etc.) and regular updates (like daily.) then you need to have lots of advertisement and promotion as well as your forum listed in alot of web directories for x free thing. even then you're still going to struggle and have lots of trollers, spammers, and people looking just to hang out and be negative about everything. or, you can simplify your forum and use a smaller script and go for an audience that will use your forum as a 'hey i'm looking for x can you do this?' forum.

good comparison place for forums.

[suz]

Trading posts with each other is a good start. As the conversation gets going people join in.

If nobody has the time for the forum 3D then I don't see how it can possibly succeed. After a few months just the maintenance required to delete spam can be quiet time consuming.

[wetgravy]

yup, suz is right. Personally i like having a simple blog that has rss feeds instead of a forum. That way i can post on whatever I want to and people can comment. my new version of my website will be using dasblog since it's simple, and i can use it without mysql databases ... not the prettiest script, but damn fine and gets the job done. Kubeblog is a close second, but that is because I have it in my goals that i'm going to start providing free themes for it since it's a great script, but the company is lacking on the support for it.

[3dmagicaldesign]

Well..as I say:

I manage all the marketing, public relationships and media for my company but I am not good handling the programs involved in 3d development such as 3ds max, autocad, maya, v-ray, etc. I love this forum because it allows me to post tips, advices, marketing strategies, etc, also, there are many people coming here looking for that kind of advice or comment, but I have realized that the 3D forum is more specific because people only want to ask " how do I render this?", how to make this light brighter, etc. I have only posted news and some topics, I think I will wait, I will leave it linked on my home page and will see if my visitors find it interesting. I will focus on my blog, thanks a lot for the advice!!

[kremo5le]

Hello guys,

I'm still looking for expanding my site's forum popularity. It isn't just for traffic, but I'm planning on actually help people for free. But, why isn't people signing up? I think it is the fact that the forum barely has posts and/or users...

Suggestions? I want to help!