I have recently had a reminder to do something on all my forums that I did long ago on Sprint Users. The welcome email that vBulletin sends out by default looks something like this:
Dear YOURUSERNAME,
Thanks for registering at FORUM NAME! We are glad you have chosen to be a part of our community and we hope you enjoy your stay.
All the best,
THEIR NAME
While this looks nice and professional at first glance, remember there is always room for improvement. Why not add a few lines with links to important forums, hot topics, or other interesting features of your forum beneath the nice welcome? The idea is that you want new registerants to become ACTIVE, so help them out and prod them in the right direction!
by Chris Kenworthy @ Ackfoo.com
One thing I’ve been doing is including a link to an html code new users can copy and paste on their website or social networking profile which says they are a member of the site.