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Classic Problem - lack of Posts.

Started by shinglis, August 30, 2018, 05:01:21 AM

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shinglis

OK been reading other topics on here but my forum is not as active as I would like it to be or maybe I am just being too optimistic and impatient.

Basic details, it's a football club fans site, so limited scope to all things related to the club, which allows scope for discussion.
Currently forum has 324 members (over almost 3years) but only realistic about 20 or 30 users who regular post.

I currently manage 2 user accounts to try to promote discussion and don't really want to create (& manage) more of my own accounts.

Should I just accept the level of activity and continue as is ? (appreciate it is a slow process)
Do I post a topic asking the users for advice or clarification why they think of the lack of activity ?
or email the key users who do post asking for assistance ?

I know 2.1 is ongoing but also maybe refresh the theme with a responsive theme and fresh the site a little, but would also like to include a lot of functions included in 2.1 as also not sure if the reduced functionality is an issue. Did a poll to change software to IPB and results was 50/50 so didn't help  :-[

There is plenty of activity on Facebook group and similar forums so I know that active users exists.

Anyway, open to comments / suggestions or just general reassurance..
http://somersetroadend.com/forum/index.php



Looking

Is your site an official site for the club or just fan based? Some of the things you mentioned will boost it. There is lots of competition for attention out there so you have to 'offer' something unique.

shinglis

Quote from: Looking on August 30, 2018, 05:41:00 AM
Is your site an official site for the club or just fan based? Some of the things you mentioned will boost it. There is lots of competition for attention out there so you have to 'offer' something unique.

It's just a fan based site, but to my knowledge the only one for that particular club.

Forgot to mention I also utilize twitter to advertise links to topics and general communication.

Looking

Having 20-30 active posters is pretty good. Being just a fan based site means you compete against other sites of a similar nature. If you could get a more official status or permission or endorsement then you can carry it to the next level but usually carrying a trademark / name carries with it some pros and cons. I sent you a PM.

GigaWatt

I'd like to have 20 or 30 active members on mine ::).

I'd just leave things as they are for the moment. Social media sites are on the rise, forums are not as interesting as they used to be... don't take it so personal.

But yes, I would agree that unique and constructive content does make your forum stand out ;).
"This is really a generic concept about human thinking - when faced with large tasks we're naturally inclined to try to break them down into a bunch of smaller tasks that together make up the whole."

"A 500 error loosely translates to the webserver saying, "WTF?"..."

drewactual

make nice with competition. 

be active on potential competitors sites, and pick up their overflow.. if they dump a thread due to clashing, direct them to continue on your site. 

also, by nature sports fans are active mostly in down time- on a phone or in their offices watching the clock.  set up some contests and such. have your site optimized for mobile.  mobile is huge in our niche. 

the guys in my football (American, college) put together some really good threads that elicit thought and participation... feel free to check it out, it's mostly in the big ten board.  i imagine it would transport to your version of football easily enough.

also... blog.  blogs get exposure.  set up a youtube channel and channel your inner comedian or shock jock and do some game reviews- force both the blog and the video comments to your forum. 

shinglis

thanks for the feedback. 

Never been that creative to generate a blog never mind Vlog but hey always a 1st time.  :D

EthanR

Quote from: shinglis on August 30, 2018, 05:01:21 AM
There is plenty of activity on Facebook group...

^^ Social media is the problem basically. Forums have been in decline for years now. For every forum there are multiple facebook based groups for the same area of interest. I think the convenience of social media along with it being I guess, the 'cool' place to be, makes forums less appealing.

I think of social media as meeting up with friends at a bar discussing stuff and forums as going to the library. Sure the depth of knowledge and support will be more at forums but the social place generally wins in popularity contests. Throwing up a pic on facebook with some text is faster than creating a thought out forum post with pictures.

It's somewhat of a losing battle but I think forums will always have a certain amount of relevancy. Even it is just for having a stockpile of information! My approach to entice users has been to modernize the forums a bit, for example, responsiveness is essential. Then I have been working on making uploading and inserting images easy and user friendly (upload your 5meg camera pic no problem, let the forum resize and sort out etc). The other area is the matter of exposing users to historic content. A mod like 'related/similar topics' exposes older related topics as a user finishes reading an existing topic, prompting him to browse further and hopefully interact.

A lot of forums probably have a lot of pictures as attachments - been looking for a way to expose some of those pictures and link them to their respective threads, nothing draws attention like pictures. No mod available for that though.

So there are ways to improve participation but yeah, the odds are stacked against forums..

GigaWatt

Quote from: EthanR on September 04, 2018, 10:32:06 PM
It's somewhat of a losing battle but I think forums will always have a certain amount of relevancy. Even it is just for having a stockpile of information!

Exactly, just like libraries ;). Eventually, you'll have to go to one if you want to get into a certain area of interest a little deeper ;).

"This is really a generic concept about human thinking - when faced with large tasks we're naturally inclined to try to break them down into a bunch of smaller tasks that together make up the whole."

"A 500 error loosely translates to the webserver saying, "WTF?"..."

Sir Osis of Liver

Quote from: drewactual on August 30, 2018, 10:09:53 PM
make nice with competition. 

Exchange links with fan and official sites for other teams in same league.  All will benefit.
Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend,
 we were all equal in the end.

                                     - R. Waters

njtweb

#10
I typically post something engaging once a day, to which I then post to Twitter/FB and G+. The article will normally get anywhere from 1k to 3k views but rarely gets any posting going on, (and I allow guest posting without registration) maybe 1 or 2 comments on it at best. Everybody seems to stay on FB and Twitter and they'll comment like crazy about the article. I'm making about .20 to .75 cents a day in ad revenue using adsense. According to adsense stats, 85.97% of my traffic is handheld wireless devices.

drewactual

also something HUGE in today's 'forum' game....

make available a SOCIAL LOGIN.. make it as easy as possible for users to access your page.

njtweb

Quote from: drewactual on September 05, 2018, 03:54:26 PM
also something HUGE in today's 'forum' game....

make available a SOCIAL LOGIN.. make it as easy as possible for users to access your page.

The social login mod here seems to have quite a few issues. I've been following the mod help thread for the past few weeks watching with hope all the kinks get worked out.

EthanR

Been considering the social login as well, is the mod in a usable state or are there show stopping bugs?

drewactual

i use SMF packs  social login, a premium (paid for) mod... it's worth it. 

just today i posted (using a free mod for posting facebook, twitter, and google+) a thread to facebook, and have received almost 3k views off that one action on FB translating to over 200 eyes on the thread itself, and that isn't even including the wordpress (what my site calls the 'publisher') install working it's magic through news contributions...

don't get me wrong, i don't think the level of effort i put into this comes anywhere near rewarding the site with interest, but... it's almost a challenge, now, and i'm going to win this battle... dang it...

njtweb

Quote from: drewactual on September 05, 2018, 06:21:02 PM
i use SMF packs  social login, a premium (paid for) mod... it's worth it. 

just today i posted (using a free mod for posting facebook, twitter, and google+) a thread to facebook, and have received almost 3k views off that one action on FB translating to over 200 eyes on the thread itself, and that isn't even including the wordpress (what my site calls the 'publisher') install working it's magic through news contributions...

don't get me wrong, i don't think the level of effort i put into this comes anywhere near rewarding the site with interest, but... it's almost a challenge, now, and i'm going to win this battle... dang it...

What do you mean you posted using a free mod for posting to socials? I use a site called Dlvr.it which posts to all three of them but it's limited to 10 posts a day with the free service. As far as the SMF packs social login, do you know if it works well with responsive curve? My site traffic is almost 90% phone users. It has to function on a responsive level.

Thanks for your info!

drewactual

it is responsive best i can tell, so long as the theme it's stuck inside is.  it basically appends to the login template. 

the mod that posts for free is a simple button at bottom of post (i have it set to only display on first post).. it is here... run in emulate mode to install.

so far as i know there is no limit for the posting- it does it 'manually' NOT auto, I misspoke, but it's as easy as punching the button and selecting the page (either your personal page or own you manage and using the FB API)... the only complaint i have about it is it retreads images if you don't hardcode one in...

right now there are 1278 guests and 78 users on my primary SMF site- and that is due to the time of year (football season) as well as the traffic drug in by social media shares... it's kinda a big deal for my site.

njtweb

That is the kind of activity I hope to have this hockey season. My site is a youth hockey travel site. Do you have adsense installed?

drewactual

i do run adsense, but not via a mod.. i tried various adsense mods and several premium advertising mods, and they fell flat from my perspective.

i simply hardcoded ads into boardindex and displayindex in the end, and i'm much happier with it... they're placed in good spots while remaining unobtrusive to reading content.  one atop message index, one at bottom... one atop display index, one below.. the other ad on page is amazon associates, and only in sidebar that is css set to sticky (no js) and stays under readers noses... that sticky trick allows for faster/cleaner loading of pages and keeping the advert visible, while also allowing me to display a pretty decent stack (number) of messages in threads that reduces bandwidth/server load.. 

njtweb

Out of curiosity, what kind of revenue do you accrue daily? I can't seem to get past my high mark of .75 cents. I average about .25 cents.  I don't get the clicks its all CPM.

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