How to spin up a forum on your website

If you decided to setup a forum on your company or product website then the most annoying question is likely: “Initially, my forum will be empty and will look silent. This will deter people from joining the community. What to do?” As a moderator of several forums, I’d like to share a tip regarding the question.

Initially, don’t create too many sections. While your forum isn’t very popular each section would contain just a few posts and overall the forum would look inactive.

Create just a couple of general sections and have all posts there. So, these sections will be active and, therefore, the whole forum will look alive. Later, you may create more focused sections and move the appropriate posts there from the general section. Thus, the newly created section will be immediately filled with many posts and will also look active.

This simple trick will help you quickly spin up your forum and build a community around your product with minimal efforts.