I recently started a new forum and well..this is kind of weird. I invited a lot of friends and it seems that none of them want to post unless I'm posting with them..it's kind of bizarre. Any suggestions?
That's kind of natural with a new forum. As the administrator, you need to generate discussion (at least, until it starts growing on it's own as members begin to get to know each other and are interested in talking amongst themselves). As they say "Rome wasn't built in a day!"
Alright, so it's just an issue of me being impatient then. I'll give it a couple months then. Thing is..the members already know each other as they're all my friends from another site and a couple others..
Oh yeah, definitely normal then. Give it time, and some love in the Advertising / Promotion department and you should be able to get some more activity. (Don't spam though! ) The 4 year old forum, how is that one in the Activity department?
Ok, I didn't know that behavior was normal so yeah. I always feel awkward advertising, but whatever. I'll have to do it. Not really sure how though so I just stuck to my friends for now. Still going strong. I don't own that site, but I'm the head admin there. Over 100 regular members who refuse to leave..lol.
Advertising is an awkward thing to do, yes. Achieve backlinks, get some GOOD unique content up, ask your friends to help spread the word, and you should do just fine. Regarding the other site, sounds good. It has "establishment." But I can guarantee that, unless their in a very unique niche, they had to build up to that. Same as you're doing now.
Basically a very popular forum shut down so somebody took advantage of the opportunity and made a replacement community.
