[Suggestions Needed] Project: Boosting Activity Back in an ex-Popular Forum

[008Rohit]

Back in 2010, as a 12 years old 'kid', I got involved in creating custom firmwares (kind of like custom ROMs that you see for Android devices today) for Symbian OS powered Nokia smartphones. I had no idea what I was doing, and who were downloading what I was creating and all that, and I didn't care either, as I was doing everything for fun. Eventually, the staff of the forum in which modders used to post their mods and CFWs started to behave harshly with common members. So, I had decided and created a smartphone forum with a focus on Symbian. It was created back in January, 2011. It quickly became popular. With around 75-100 people always online in a few months. It continued to grow until I was forced to concentrated solely on my studies for a then upcoming board examination. I never used Google Analytics back in those days to analyse the forum, but without newness in the forum, member activity started to decrease.

At the same time, Nokia went insane. They killed the Symbian OS and the loyal users of the forum. Most of them joined Facebook and began talking to each other via that instead. At the same time, I got interested in PC hardware, servers, and web hosting more. With a smartphone site, I wasn't totally happy. We could post Symbian apps, themes on the forum as Symbian didn't have a Play Store. But with the arrival of Android, Google literally killed the market of average forums, if you don't take iOS into consideration.

The site was still getting around 150-200 online users, back in September, October, 2012. Then I thought about getting a new domain and transforming it into something in which I can post anything from Smartphone Content to Web Hosting Reviews to PC configurations. Thus I bought the domain http://techtage.com (previous one was smartphonegeeks.in) and customized the forum a tiny bit and re-launched it with the new name. The redirection worked for a month (from old domain to new domain). After that period, I didn't had the ownership of the old domain.

Now, the stats are frightening. There are hardly 30-40 users online most of the times. The forum has lost almost all of its activity. Some of the old members I know, use Facebook these days more than anything else. They use Facebook groups to discuss anything from smartphones to PC builds to Gaming. No damn is given to my beloved forum, my optimized, responsive, secured forum, especially at a time when I'm honestly wanting to get activity back in it.

Forum URL: http://forum.techtage.com

I'd like to hear from you people. I'd love to know what you think about the entire thing.

[ApplianceJunk]

Then I thought about getting a new domain and transforming it into something in which I can post anything from Smartphone Content to Web Hosting Reviews to PC configurations.

I don't see why you had to get a new domain to add additional content to the site.


Think you would have been better off keeping things at the old domain and just add the additional content there.


But you maybe figured that out by now.

[008Rohit]

Then I thought about getting a new domain and transforming it into something in which I can post anything from Smartphone Content to Web Hosting Reviews to PC configurations.

I don't see why you had to get a new domain to add additional content to the site.


Think you would have been better off keeping things at the old domain and just add the additional content there.


But you maybe figured that out by now.

How'd you justify posting 'power supply units recommendations' or 'web hosting reviews' in a forum titled 'Smartphone Geeks'?