I setup a great forum a few years ago and managed to get it to a point where I got about 500-600 posts/day. I guess having a directory and chat room and plus some media (free) exposure helped alot.
Now that I have my own personal blog, it seems that no matter what I do I can't get any activity. I confesss that my blog (see sig) is not that well focused, plus I have not used some of the familiar tactics used in forums to get things moving, but nonetheless, the blog is dead.
What's your forum about? Maybe you could integrate your blog to the forum site instead of having it on a separate site.
Do you have any special goals with the blog or is it just you talking about things and them reading and commenting? What is the purpose of it?
I am not a "blogging expert" or anything (far from it), but i think it's better to have certain goals and purposes for whatever you do and that includes blogging. Disclose those purposes to give people more reason to read you.
Well, just my 2c..
EDIT: For people who don't bother to copy-paste the URL from his Hesham's signature here's the link: Hesham Amiri's Blog
Actually the forum is for another site that was sold, but I did build the community from scarth. I used some debatble tactics to liven up the forum, like posting a message then replying with a flamer under another name and so on.. works great, especially in sports retalted sites/forums and the debates can take a life of thier own there.
But as for my blog, I guess you are right i need to be more specific and focused, but what can I do? I'm guy with alot of interests and I love talking about alot of things.
Maybe try to show off your style, maybe charm, when writing, something special about you.. It doesn't have to be specific topic.. You could have a monthly or weekly special or something like that. A special day in week or month when you talk about certain interesting topic, maybe nominating the persons of month that are best or worse in one of the categories you're interested in and then letting people vote for the worse or best.. or something similar.
There is some good info on my blog forum. The best way to grow your blog, IMO, is to interact with other people who blog. I think it's as mcuh about networking as about the writing.
You know, looking back I think I'm actually better at getting other communities/blogs started. I have been actively building the momentum for other sites that I admin or cotribute too, but when it comes down to my own blog, I usually have nothing more to say.
To be honest though, I get paid rather well for my efforts on some of the sites and that is fine by me. I just wish I could instant-create a coomunity for my own lonely blog
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