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“The answer is pretty much the same as it is a blog. You have to take a leadership role and participate actively. Contribute. Be highly visible and interactive. Ask engaging questions. The most important thing in starting is to keep the forum small and tightly organized– grow it as growth demands. No one wants to visit a huge forum with 100 categories and no posts in any of them. You can always expand as users grow.
When I started my forum years ago, I contributed to EVERY thread. Yes, EVERY THREAD. Even today, I visit every day and try to contribute something to the conversation. Your audience will appreciate that your forum isn’t just some community building tool that you just threw up to enhance your brand, but something that you stand behind. Think of it like building a large apartment complex that you intend on LIVING IN– your readers (residents) will appreciate that you just didn’t build it for “making money” or “community building” but to be apart of your life, so much so, that you live there.”
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