Getting forum members

[Norrad]

As a fellow forum admin. I am always interested in how others promote their forums. General web promotion techniques work to a certan extent. But getting members from your traffic is trickier. How do you all go about it? Any tricks you would be kind enough to share?

[Jazz]

It depends very much what your forum is about and the userbase it attracts really.
There are a lot of different methods, but some will work for you some won't. It depends entirely who you want to attract really.
MySpace is working rather well for me at the moment, well i say rather well... about 70% of the people who i send a friend request to visit my site at least once, it is very new at the moment though so not that many are joining up. I'm getting friend requests from people interested in my niche though, and people are giving me positive feedback even if they're not joining.
I'm not just adding people for the sake of it, i'm targeting people very much by them showing a keen interested in what my forum is about, and talking to people i add as much as possible to show theres a human face behind the account.

[ablaye]

First, your forum must look busy. You have to get paid forum posters to populate your forum so that there is a variety of topic.
Next, you need to be active yourself in your forum. Don't let posts go unanswered. Post as often as you can. And be very friendly to the community.
Next, you need to join similar forums and post there with your link on your signature.
Hope this helps.

[Michelle]

One thing I've done is give members a personalized button with the site logo and their username.  They wear them to meetings and conventions; makes them more approachable, helps them identify other members, and advertises my forum all at the same time

[BeatleManU]

Activity, activity, activity.

- To start with you need to fill up every forum with posts and keep doing this daily.
- Make yourself multiple accounts and basically post back and forth to yourself.
- Do as many post, banner and link exchanges as you can, they are free!!!
- Tell all your family and friends about your site.
- Repeat the above everyday for 3-6 months and you should be ok...