Well, we all have our own little reason our boards are still alive today. Plus, usually they've been a little "secretive"
So, I thought I'd make this topic so we could all share what makes our boards special. Share what makes our boards popular.

Ya know, help each other out

So, let's share our tricks and tips.
I'll start,

-Get a EzBlogWorld blog and use that as a news portal to your forum if your forum is based on a paticular bit of news. Instead of blogging on the blog use it like an electronic newspaper and publish your announcements and special news through there. Plus you can link to your forum on the side and hold your rules and other special parts of your forum seperatly

-Use digg.com. This site is known to be SOO popular that even little tiny sites get hundreds or thousands of hits in a matter of minutes. Simply put you register on www.digg.com. When someone on your forum uncovers a news story or an interesting story you submit a link to your forum to digg.com. Even once when my site had news about different colours Wii controllers that was rather old we got 50 hits in a day just by a little submission to digg.com Edit: As a little bit of proof of this theory, someone published a article on my site, I stick it on digg. I have 1200 hits today, and counting.  Really, digg is amazing. It's worth your time.

-Make your members feel special. Your forum isn't in the army, so don't run it like it's a military camp. If you members have a suggestion consider it for real. Don't set your forum up so that nobody can do anything without somebody's permission. Most of us are just little tiny SMF For Free sites, we don't need to mange thousands of members with strict killer mods and rules. Let everyone have fun and be able to post without a million worries in the back of their head.

-Be professional. Okay, I'm not saying like professional like wear-a-suit-to-your-computer but like a typical casual friday kind of professional. Still joke around but remember your appeal too. A pretty banner and well suiting theme can make for a nice forum.

-Enjoy yourself! I don't know why I wrote this rule last, because really it's the #1 rule. But hey, save the best for last right? Joke around like you know the members in person, play games in your forum. Don't lock every off-topic topic, just let someone go to have fun.

So, now it's all of your turns, drain yourselves of your secrets.