- Joined
- Sep 9, 2013
- Messages
- 1,729
It's been a long time since I ran a forum, I don't actually know 'the best ways' any more. The rules have changed.
I think there's scope for doing some of the things talked about here, using social media's strengths of new content to your advantage - assuming you have friends that would be vaguely interested in the content you have, you could share to your own timeline with more-permissive sharing than usual. If you're a member of some groups that potentially would be interested, share there too.
That's the thing, people treat it like a zero sum game when it isn't. The lines blur so much; people in this thread noted that they don't want 'meme or trash content', partially because it has some perception of cheapening the good content, but also because it creates some associations they don't want, that short-form trivial content is somehow less desirable.
Depending on your niche I think that's absolutely true - but the reality is that people don't want to be 'on topic' all of the time. The actual topics of discussion will vary and fluctuate because that's what humans do: flail and wander off topic with some boundaries. But people who have things in common over one set of topics (your forum niche) will likely have other things in common (shared cultural appreciation) - and that means space for the social media like content to exist and be allowed air-time to thrive.
On the other hand, while I made the observation that Facebook actively discourages long form discussion, there's no reason why you can't engage some of the more interesting threads from a social media angle. I don't have any truly inspired examples off the top of my head, but imagine you run something like a Star Trek themed site, and you had a robust discussion brewing about 'the new series of Discovery' - what's to stop you taking a position over on Facebook with a meme image, maybe "Discovery sucks, change my mind" (or the opposite, "Discovery is amazing, change my mind") - it's well understood that picture posts get more views than non-picture posts on FB, so use the strengths of the medium to your ends: FB-friendly content that has a shot of engaging.
That only works, though, if you happen to have friends (or groups) where that kind of call to action would get you anywhere, but the key is to be careful in how and what streams you want to cross - FB style content that engages can certainly pull people over to your site from FB, and if you have space for FB style content to flourish, it can result in cross-pollination.
Of course that may not work in all cases, certainly won't be appropriate in all cases - and if you're like me and don't have even 100 people on Facebook any more, your reach there isn't going to work.
At that point you need to come up with something for others to be your ambassadors; have content other people actually want to link to so they can when they feel like it - longer thoughtful articles with a punchy title seem to work pretty well, with the forum as a supporting vehicle for building a community around it.
The key thing is that a forum gives you a venue for a community, rather than a loose group of vaguely associated people who happen to be broadly in the same place at the same time. The next question is what that community can offer that Facebook can't - beyond the 'community' aspect where it's like a bar that everyone knows your name, what functionality can you bring to support the needs of that community.
If it's a local community, some way to have local events be posted, maybe integrated somehow with Facebook to reach people, integrated with Google Maps somehow to show people what's on offer, with some kind of virtual notice board for the local community to share what's going on with them. Maybe some kind of integration with a service like Padlet to give people a communal space they can decorate and inform people with.
If it's a community in a niche, what does that niche want/need? e.g. vehicle customisation forums tend to want a space to record the customisations they have, maybe with pictures so they can show off what they have and learn about what others have done in the hopes it inspires them. (IPS Pages comes to mind, though it's far from the only solution here). Maybe it's a forum about some niche kind of baking, maybe vegan or gluten free, where people can share recipes, again something like IPS Pages can help where people can share their recipes with each other, comment on them, try them out, share pictures.
I'm just throwing things out there - Facebook necessarily gives you low friction content and lots of it, the trick is to use it to hook someone by getting their attention. Then once you have them, what can you bring that Facebook can't possibly - it only offers one-size-fits-all for the content you can share, the trick must be from your perspective to have something to encourage and support the community that you're building. After that... I'd hope some kind of positive feedback loop can occur.
But I might be off the mark; I'm still thinking about what I need to produce for what I have in mind - my next venture is... well, I might just make a topic on it and see what happens.
I think there's scope for doing some of the things talked about here, using social media's strengths of new content to your advantage - assuming you have friends that would be vaguely interested in the content you have, you could share to your own timeline with more-permissive sharing than usual. If you're a member of some groups that potentially would be interested, share there too.
That's the thing, people treat it like a zero sum game when it isn't. The lines blur so much; people in this thread noted that they don't want 'meme or trash content', partially because it has some perception of cheapening the good content, but also because it creates some associations they don't want, that short-form trivial content is somehow less desirable.
Depending on your niche I think that's absolutely true - but the reality is that people don't want to be 'on topic' all of the time. The actual topics of discussion will vary and fluctuate because that's what humans do: flail and wander off topic with some boundaries. But people who have things in common over one set of topics (your forum niche) will likely have other things in common (shared cultural appreciation) - and that means space for the social media like content to exist and be allowed air-time to thrive.
On the other hand, while I made the observation that Facebook actively discourages long form discussion, there's no reason why you can't engage some of the more interesting threads from a social media angle. I don't have any truly inspired examples off the top of my head, but imagine you run something like a Star Trek themed site, and you had a robust discussion brewing about 'the new series of Discovery' - what's to stop you taking a position over on Facebook with a meme image, maybe "Discovery sucks, change my mind" (or the opposite, "Discovery is amazing, change my mind") - it's well understood that picture posts get more views than non-picture posts on FB, so use the strengths of the medium to your ends: FB-friendly content that has a shot of engaging.
That only works, though, if you happen to have friends (or groups) where that kind of call to action would get you anywhere, but the key is to be careful in how and what streams you want to cross - FB style content that engages can certainly pull people over to your site from FB, and if you have space for FB style content to flourish, it can result in cross-pollination.
Of course that may not work in all cases, certainly won't be appropriate in all cases - and if you're like me and don't have even 100 people on Facebook any more, your reach there isn't going to work.
At that point you need to come up with something for others to be your ambassadors; have content other people actually want to link to so they can when they feel like it - longer thoughtful articles with a punchy title seem to work pretty well, with the forum as a supporting vehicle for building a community around it.
The key thing is that a forum gives you a venue for a community, rather than a loose group of vaguely associated people who happen to be broadly in the same place at the same time. The next question is what that community can offer that Facebook can't - beyond the 'community' aspect where it's like a bar that everyone knows your name, what functionality can you bring to support the needs of that community.
If it's a local community, some way to have local events be posted, maybe integrated somehow with Facebook to reach people, integrated with Google Maps somehow to show people what's on offer, with some kind of virtual notice board for the local community to share what's going on with them. Maybe some kind of integration with a service like Padlet to give people a communal space they can decorate and inform people with.
If it's a community in a niche, what does that niche want/need? e.g. vehicle customisation forums tend to want a space to record the customisations they have, maybe with pictures so they can show off what they have and learn about what others have done in the hopes it inspires them. (IPS Pages comes to mind, though it's far from the only solution here). Maybe it's a forum about some niche kind of baking, maybe vegan or gluten free, where people can share recipes, again something like IPS Pages can help where people can share their recipes with each other, comment on them, try them out, share pictures.
I'm just throwing things out there - Facebook necessarily gives you low friction content and lots of it, the trick is to use it to hook someone by getting their attention. Then once you have them, what can you bring that Facebook can't possibly - it only offers one-size-fits-all for the content you can share, the trick must be from your perspective to have something to encourage and support the community that you're building. After that... I'd hope some kind of positive feedback loop can occur.
But I might be off the mark; I'm still thinking about what I need to produce for what I have in mind - my next venture is... well, I might just make a topic on it and see what happens.