My site is growing nicely...next steps help.

[fmgrowit]

Hello Everyone, It's been a while since I've made a nuisance of myself here...I guess that's a good thing ;).

My site FairTradeTobacco (http://fairtradetobacco.com) has gone 13 months until the first 10,000 posts to less than 4 months to the second 10,000. All of my posts are real as is the membership which is at 455.

The content of the site is probably some of the most unique content on the internet. Almost all of it comes from personal experience and experimentation. The site's main theme is how to grow, cure and process tobacco. We've unlocked many industry secrets, designed scaled down commercial processing suitable for the hobbyist, and are now realizing Big tobacco chemical independence. Using tobacco still isn't good for you, but when you use all natural tobacco, it isn't any worse than commercial processed stuff.

I'm looking into expanding into the youtube arena and possibly integrate with facebook. I'm currently using 4.2.0 and am looking for advice on upgrading first or use the 4.2.0. Once these other accounts are set up, will upgrading be a problem?

Also, I'd like your opinion about page continuity. Should I keep the forum theme on the youtube and facebook pages or should those pages be more youtube and facebook-ish?

I haven't monetized the forum yet, but would like to take that step also. If anyone would like to assist in any or all of this, please shoot me a PM.

Thanks,
Don

[fmgrowit]

OK, maybe the question should have been...
"Can someone direct me to a place where I might be able to get these questions answered?"

[John Lester]

Have you searched the mod section here to see if someone has already done what you're looking for?

[fmgrowit]

No, I know my business and I do very well running it. I don't know social networking and have been appealing to "the experts" for more than a year with lackluster results.

You people know your job...I know mine. You don't know my job...I don't know yours. Isn't this the place to put the two components together?...I'm very seriously beginning to think not.

If anyone thinks they know what direction I'm going and would like to assist, please don't hesitate to reply. I've hired hundreds of people throughout the course of my career...thousands if you take into account sub-contractors and vendors. I can identify the difference between confidence and arrogance...something of which seems to be prevalent around here.

I really don't mean to belittle the arrogant here, but the previous statement should either provoke an arrogant to try to trick me into hiring them or a confident person (who knows what I mean) to answer the call.

[KevinL]

Hey Don! Shoot me an email. Would be happy to answer your questions :)

[wtricks]

Don, I have no idea about your business, but maybe I can give some insight.

1. do Facebook. create a nice page and feed it with ONLY articles and links to interesting stuff. I mean, if you create an article ON THE FORUM, do mention it on you page on facebook. Be active there, but don't lose focus: your site is what matters.

2. creating a youtube channel is good, you can create videos about how to handle tobacco etc. Again, have no clue, but I assume you can do a lot of stuff. Promote facebook and youtube pages on the forums, but don't forget you use social media to attract people TO YOUR site not vice-versa.

3. You can upgrade to the latest 4.2 version. I wouldn't recommend VB5, it's still buggy. I wouldn't put a live site on it, if they paid me to do so.

As for the forums, I'd lose the activity stream in the main page. You can disable it from the admin panel (PM me if you need more details or want me to do it, takes 2 seconds) and leave the normal forum index to show. It's way better than that crap listing of latest stuff.

You can monetize with Adsense (if they allow the niche), Text-Link-Ads.com, Linkworth.com, BuySellAds.com etc. The best would be to have your own advertisers. Create a nice advertise page, with some stats and the prices. This way you don't lose commission.

Let me know if you'd like me to go more into specifics ;)

[John Lester]

No, I'm one of those rare breeds who actually has a subject to build a forum around...opposed to having a forum and trying to figure out what to build around it.

I have to believe one of the original concepts of "a forum" STARTS with a subject...not with a forum license.

I know my business and I do very well running it. I don't know social networking and have been appealing to "the experts" for more than a year with lackluster results.

You people know your job...I know mine. You don't know my job...I don't know yours. Isn't this the place to put the two components together?...I'm very seriously beginning to think not.

If anyone thinks they know what direction I'm going and would like to assist, please don't hesitate to reply. I've hired hundreds of people throughout the course of my career...thousands if you take into account sub-contractors and vendors. I can identify the difference between confidence and arrogance...something of which seems to be prevalent around here.

I really don't mean to belittle the arrogant here, but the previous statement should either provoke an arrogant to try to trick me into hiring them or a confident person (who knows what I mean) to answer the call.

I have no idea what you're babbling on about in the first paragraph, it has nothing to do with the question posted. You failed to mention if you had done a search to see if there was something already done that would work, so I asked. If you don't provide enough information to get the response you are looking for it's your own fault.

I know my limitations and would never bother trying to get hired for a job from someone like you, even though the field you work in is almost irrelevant to the job you are seeking (I don't need to know anything about tobacco to write code).

[fmgrowit]

I know my limitations and would never bother trying to get hired for a job from someone like you, even though the field you work in is almost irrelevant to the job you are seeking (I don't need to know anything about tobacco to write code).
I appreciate your honesty

[yamahapaul]

This may or may not be much help but you could create a facebook page and update it using rss feeds.Also you could use twitter and do a similar thing or even create a facebook page and a twitter account use diigo and update them both simultaneously using rss feeds... just an idea..

[fmgrowit]

Let me know if you'd like me to go more into specifics ;)

Thank you for your concise reply. I will be sure to pass this on the whomever does the work.

This may or may not be much help but you could create a facebook page and update it using rss feeds.Also you could use twitter and do a similar thing or even create a facebook page and a twitter account use diigo and update them both simultaneously using rss feeds... just an idea..

Thank you for offering your input. These are the things I believe my site needs to do in order to grow a little more rapidly. I appreciate the time you took to reply...Thank you.

Kevin...Email sent.

[wtricks]

You're welcome. There are few ideas that usually work for a site (no matter the niche), so I can extrapolate and help you with them. I don't know the niche, but it's important to be present in the social media but still work THE MOST of the time on your site. And the activity stream is killing me alive and I don't think too many people actually enjoy it anyway. It's better for your visitors to get a clear view of your forums and the index is actually a better 'way' to do it

[fmgrowit]

What is the drawback with the Activity Stream?...most members seam to like it. It save them from having to go through the forums looking for new topics and posts. Is it that the page view count is affected?...translating into lower revenue?

I guess one of my bigger fears is how forum upgrades will affect the social sites if they are integrated. Will forum updates/upgrades cause problems with these associated sites?