What's the best way to get a community on wearable tech started?

I just launched a forum on wearable tech. Apple Watch, Fitbit, GoPro, etc. What’s the best way to get it rolling? I once owned a large forum on hybrid cars, and I remember it was very difficult to get the first few members in and posting. What are your suggestions? The website is http://wearabletechforums.com

Thank you!

Get your social media set up and write a few custom content pieces on the subject and get them up on a blog. Distribute those around using social bookmaking. Also, hit some niche forums and add your signature which links back to your forum. If you are an authority on subjects within your niche and people like what you write and say then your following will go but it will take some time and effort. Good luck.

Keep it simple. Don’t overdo the forums and give some general areas to talk about the subject within the forums.

A big thing to keep in mind is why someone would come to your site to talk about wearable tech, what do you offer? Do you have the biggest range of knowledge on the subject? My suggestion would be to build a review site around it. Blog about the tech, be on top of all the latest news and ensure that you have something on every bit of tech out there that is wearable and make sure it is current.

Activate your social media account and share those articles around. If you want to do the articles through the forum, make it happen, if not start a blog on the homepage section of the site.

You can then activate a number of marketing channels slowly:

  • Search Engine Optimisation
  • Social Media
  • Paid Advertising
  • Paid Reviews
  • Social Bookmarking
    etc

Hope that gives you some idea or direction with your site. Forums are difficult now and to develop a community you need to provide added value outside of just a place to talk. e.g. SitePoint offers the best articles on the web for developers and then gives you a place to interact and solve problems :slight_smile:

Josh Mackow
SitePoint Marketing Manager

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It is hard. I run communities full time as a career and the hardest jobs are always starting new communities from scratch.

There are two key things. Firstly, you need to know enough people in the niche to get things started. Don’t just build it in the hope that they will come because they won’t. You need to know ~50 people that you can reach out to personally. And that’s the second thing. You need to personally invite people. When I start a new community I spend half of every day emailing people and telling them about it. It’s hard work but it’s guaranteed to work.

Good luck.

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