Here are my tips starting a new forum with content

1. Post to it regularly rather than a blog

        That ’s right, have a top 10 list? a rant? a secret or tip? Post them to the forum as an  article        rather than a blog. Return to them later and comment  on them. If you want, you could create multiple user accounts  and post initially as yourself and later as someone else. The  ethics of that I will leave up to you.
       I try to always be above  board with everything I do. However, I don’t see any harm in
posting an article with an account name like “Article Poster”  and then responding under an account with another name. There’s not any pretense there that there are two people involved. You can easily say something like, “I think XYZ about the article I posted above” and still generate two posts out of one article without any sort of deception.
        Again, how you handle that is up to you. Needless to say, I am not a lawyer and not giving you legal advice. Obviously, if your article is about your product and you then clandestinely post a glowing review of it then you are just gunning for trouble.

2.  Scrape ideas from other active forums. 

        I’m not talking about stealing content or actually scraping an RSS feed. I’m suggesting you look at what is popular on other forums in your market and then create similar posts on your own forum. For example, you can go to another forum and then sort the posts there by pageviews and responses.
      This will clue you in to what is hot on that forum. So if the most popular thread on a forum about bass fishing is a post entitled “smallmouth bass are tough to catch” then you could create a thread on your forum entitled “Are smallmouth bass impossible to catch?” and then start off a similar conversation. Remember, I’m not talking about stealing content- just looking for ideas in the best place possible...from similar sites around the web.

3. Break up blog posts and articles. 

         Chances are you have already written some blog posts or articles for whatever niche you are in. Why not take portions of them and use them as a basis for your forum threads. As an example, if you have a blog post called “The Top 10 Tips for Running a Yard Sale” then why not create a forum thread called “3 Hot Tips for Yard Sales” and take 3 tips from your top 10 list? This can be a good way to repurpose content that you already have simply by breaking it up and reformatting it into something new that doesn’t already exist. This is as close to free content as you can get.

4. Datafeeds.

          This tip requires some caution because you need to check with vendors before using it. Many affiliate programs, especially large companies with a substantial product catalog, offer affiliate datafeeds. These are basically like large feeds not unlike RSS that contain full details of their products.
           If you want to learn more just search “affiliate datafeed” in your favorite search engine. IF you get approval from the vendor/ affiliate network you could use these feeds to populate your forum. However, if all you do is dump thousands of products into your forum you will effectively kill it. Google will see the lack of unique content and visitors will view it as a spam site.
           A better way is to create subforums that are very narrow in scope (left-handed electric guitars, snow tires, silk neckties) and only use datafeeds to post to there occasionally and then follow those posts up with some input of your own. Datafeeds are incredibly powerful for both forums, blogs and affiliate sites. Just check with the vendor or affiliate network beforehand to make sure your intended project is allowed AND don’t overdo it- lest you end up with a spam site rather than real forum that will build momentum.

5. Pay-per-click.

            If you have the budget to buy clicks then by all means try it for yourself. I have previously run Adwords campaigns straight to forums with great results. The trick is to direct traffic to a SINGLE subforum rather than just the home page.
           For example, if you had a forum about trucks don’t send
clicks to the main forum page but instead make ads targeted for specific brands of trucks and send the visitor straight to then why not create a forum thread called “3 Hot Tips for Yard Sales” and take 3 tips from your top 10 list? This can be a good way to repurpose content that you already have
simply by breaking it up and reformatting it into something that forum. I also usually make a post at the top of the forum page that says something like “Welcome to our new forum. We are just getting started so no registration is required.
          ” This lets people know they can post without registering AND it also explains why a forum might not be bustling with activity (it’s new). If you can spare the advertising expense then make sure and try sending some targeted traffic to your forum pages.

6. Pay for posts. 

           Believe it or not you can pay for real live people to post on your forum. All you need is a simple Google search and you’ll soon find all sorts of services that will give you content in the form of real posts for your forum. I have no affiliation with any of these sites, but here are a few I’ve found:

http://www.postloop.com/ 

http://sparkposts.com/sparkposts-products-and-services/forum-posting-packages/ 

http://www.paidforumposting.com/content/ 

http://www.forumbooster.net/ 

Remember that your overall goal with your forum is to build an asset that drives traffic for years to come. With a forum that YOU own you have a massive audience that you can advertise to and you are building tons of content that search engines love.