I Don't Get SM and Others Being Competition Factors

[FriendlyPerson]

I was plan on making a better place of where I came from of operating a service related Marketplace Forum and I was in discussion with a developer and in the end... They claimed that Google, Amazon, Facebook, Yelp, Craglist, etc would be virtually impossible to compete. Therefore I shouldn't be so vague about it.

I really don't get it... Why would anyone on Facebook cares about a forum? While a forum user would cares to use anything else for that matter?

Doesn't make more sense to focus on forums' competition factors? Rather than focusing on users who use Social Media and E commerce platforms?

In my opinion I don't see how forums and social media (less so on e commerce platforms) really mix. Given they have different agendas from one another.

 

[sbjsbj]

A forum is a platform for discussion and comments.

What else is a platform for discussing things? Oh yeah, SM.
What else is a platform for commenting things? O yeah E-commence platforms where you comment products etc.

I don't believe you understand what a forum is and what you are fighting against. Yeah, why would anyone on Facebook care about a forum... if they can discuss things on there instead of on your forum. Exactly that is the problem. Why would they? If you solve that problem, then congratulations, you have a successful forum.

 

[Nev_Dull]

I think a large part of this competition is a false dichotomy that some admins use to explain their forums' poor performance. Obviously, forums are no longer the only game in town when it comes to discussion. And certainly, some users prefer one platform over another. However, many of us admins have developed this mythic "competition" mindset that often hinders us.

We don't live in an either-or world. Forums are not like companies selling products, competing to sell our widgets over those of another company. Users who visit our forums very likely visit other forums in the same niche, and some also visit blogs, and facebook groups covering the same topic. Users don't see us as competitors, just as parts of the whole information package on a topic they are interested in. We need to stop thinking about the competitor boogyman and start focusing on delivering content that our audience needs.

 

[Ingenious]

I think a large part of this competition is a false dichotomy that some admins use to explain their forums' poor performance.

That's a good point to make.