Growth How Much Content Should You Have Before Launching a New Forum?

[Cpvr]

How much content do you think a new forum needs before it’s ready to launch?


I wouldn’t feel comfortable opening the doors with anything less than 100 solid topics/posts—enough to spark discussions and give new users something to engage with right away. A quiet, empty forum can be a dealbreaker, but a well-seeded one? That’s inviting.



What’s your magic number? How much content do you think is just right before going live?

 

[dorky]

I think you should have at least 500-1,000 posts on a new forum and subjects to discuss within each discussion board. If you open a forum with hardly anything for new members to post or discuss, it can make it difficult to obtain members.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I don't have a magic number but I do like to fill out all the sub forums with at least 2 topics to have some content for potential members to dive into when they first join. Though perhaps having a set number might be a good idea!

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I don't feel like there is a set number to focus on.

Rather, I think you need to have recent content on the main niche sections. If your boards look dead, they'll likely stay dead.

But the content quality is important, too. I don't join forums, so I can reply to "A-Z word game" posts. I join because some kind of topic posted caught my attention. If you lack quality content that brings value, you won't get quality members that want to be active on your community. IMO. IME.

 

[Nomad]

I think you should have at least 500-1,000 posts on a new forum and subjects to discuss within each discussion board. If you open a forum with hardly anything for new members to post or discuss, it can make it difficult to obtain members.

If you have not launched yet how do you suppose to get 500-1000 posts on your forum? Would you be doing all those posts, or would you hire people to post on your forum to build content before the launch?

 

[Al]

There is no magic number and it's difficult to strike a balance here. You want there to be content, but hundreds of unanswered threads looks bad. The focus should be on your community looking like a community with discussions already under way, not on a list of thread for people to answer.

 

[Cedric]

I like to do soft launches.

Once I've setup the forum, I invite some friends to help out with content. While that's being done, I typically order some content from people. So I try to get around 500-1000 posts before officially opening the forum. But often, I try to create a hype about it before actually launching to the public.

 

[fdk]

I'm a big advocate of ensuring a forum has a decent amount of content and at least appears to be relatively busy before immediately "publicly" launching. But the simple fact is this is not the way most forums are born nowadays.

I remember being part of a staff team for a new admin-related forum that was due to launch back in around 2011. The owner had shut down his original site, which was very popular, and a year or so later had a re-think and wanted to start a new project. He got together a small team of staff/valued members from his old forum, of which I happened to be one, and invited us to join him on the staff team in his new project. We agreed and between a staff team of about 7-8 between us we populated the forum with about 500 threads and 1.5k or so posts before publicly launching the forum, and it was a huge success.

If I remember rightly, the forum hit it's first 10k posts in week 1 and was at 100k within 2-3 months or so, and was a hive of activity for a while.

 

[Bryn]

Enough for everyone to have a browse around, probably like 10-15 threads made by you as a rough estimate.

 

[InMyOpinion]

I think having a solid base of content before launching is important, but you don’t need hundreds of threads to get started. If a forum looks completely empty, it can be intimidating for new users to post. But at the same time, if it’s overloaded with pre-written content, it might feel artificial.

Personally, I’d aim for a balance—enough threads and discussions to give new members something to engage with, but still leaving room for them to shape the community. Maybe 10-20 well-thought-out topics spread across different sections, along with some starter discussions to encourage replies.

Another big factor is engagement. If you have a few people ready to actively participate from day one, even a small amount of content can quickly turn into a lively community.