How to engage New users?

[twofoursixeight]

Here are some examples:

• introduction threads to welcome new users
  (stolen)

@Ed_S

You might consider starting a Welcome thread, or an Introduce Yourself thread.

• appealing designs so that the forum looks cool to new users
• make sure to keep the community going

By the way: here is a related thread to help you:

Encouraging User Participation - Some Ideas, More welcome

Folks, During the past year my user base on my forum has gone from 1,000 to about 4,000 total users. During that same time the average number of messages per day has gone from about 250 to 600 messages per day. What has been strange and disappointing is that the number of user logins per day has remained basically flat at about 200 people per day. This actually concerns me a lot I’ve heard that the average facebook user returns 1 time a day to the site - so our participation rate is really …