I have just started a forum, drivingforums.net. I've got a day job, so I can't sit here for hours and hours seeding my forums with content. I've got an idea to perhaps get some of my friends in on it (because hey, who doesn't have something to say about driving?), but even that only goes so far. An empty forum - or a forum with a bunch of categories that have zero posts - just isn't inviting, at all.
I have been trying to bridge this gap by publishing a bunch of stuff from RSS feeds to my forums. This is done automatically. As a result, my forum has hundreds of posts - but only two real users, of which I am one. I am not expecting miracles on a forum that's been open for less than a week, but I am left to wonder: What is the best balance between feed-based posts and posts that are done on the site itself by humans?
I've seen a company that does pay-for-post type stuff. Does anyone have experience with these? Any recommendations (for or against) would be useful.
I'm also using AdWords to get a few clicks, but I'm not spending too much on it since the forums are so new.
I've also been thinking about going to VBulletin, which has a lot better featureset than SimpleMachines (which I'm using now), but I'm a little reluctant to spend 160 bucks on a site that hasn't had much chance to show its potential yet.
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