Does creating a forum help with rankings?

[fattony]

Does using a forum help your site to get ranked by search engines as when your site gets spidered the content continues to change and people generally link to it?

I have just put a forum on my site (yesterday) the only thing that worries me is the fact thet the forum will be pretty bare for a while, I intend to continue to post on a regular basis and hope people will come accross the forum and like what they read and sign up, however are there any tips on attracting more people to my forum?