Keeping forums relevant in social media age?
 

Several years ago I visited all the typical webmaster and blogging forums. Took a break from the forums for a few years, came back and was surprised at how much traffic had dropped to those types of communities.

It seems traffic to forums that deal with blogging and forum development has dropped a LOT. Why is that? Are fewer people building websites? Or, are those people hanging out in places I do not know about?

Facebook and places like reddit have taken a toll on forums, but surely they still have a place?

What can forum owners do to compete with the large social media and social networking sites?

Highly specialized forums seem to be doing good. For example I belong to a metal detecting forum. At any given time the forum has over 1,000 members logged in. A Toyota forum I visit stays pretty busy.

This leads me to believe less people are visiting forums like vbulletinb.org, vbulletin.com... because less people ae building forums and websites.

A forum is just a communication tool. The main difference between forums and social media is the ability to limit the discussion to specific content and to control the amount of garbage which enters the conversation. Facebook and Reddit are steaming piles of manure when it comes to trying to keep a group or a discussion on-topic. Facebook doesn't even allow content to be sorted by date or last reply or anything else. Forums still have a place for those looking for niche specific focused content and discussion. While the trend toward mindless, meaningless "look at me" type content has prevailed the least several years it is likely a fad that will end at some point, when people grow tired of everyone talking and no one listening. When that happens the forum type community will make a comeback in popularity.

I feel like forums that have existed for a long time or its subject is very specific are ones that are still popular. People starting a new forum about something general usually end up being a ghost town.

There is no doubt that social sites have taken a toll on forums but social sites can also be used to promote your forum. On average nearly 20% of my traffic comes from social sites.

How targeted is that 20% traffic?

My google analytics shows facebook has some of the worst bounce rates of any other source.

Reddit traffic is probably the worst. They come in for a few seconds, then leave.

The bounce rate is not the best but I do get conversions and in my stores I get sales.

In terms of the forums I am not talking about paid promos with targeting. I am talking about using a fan page to promote certain posts and content, using groups, etc. Granted nobody is going to jump right into Facebook and get traffic like that. It takes time to build followers but the more followers you have, the better your traffic.

BTW - To get to 20% takes a couple hours per day at least and this is an average I am estimating across all of my sites, some of which are not forums. And to build some of these followers on some pages I did have to use paid promos through facebook.

I have used Reddit paid promos in the past but I never had time to build any organic traffic from Reddit. It can be done but it is very niche oriented and time consuming. I mainly use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram though I also get traffic daily from Youtube and Pinterest.

great question. :confused:

Maybe add a few interactive features or a gaming section maybe.

Since some others are replying to old threads, figured I'd do the same and jump off the bridge with them, weeeeeeee! I still <3 you guys and gals!

What can help forum owners compete with Social media... games? Unique site features (what is unique these days?)

The ONLY three things that can maintain a forum in my personal opinion are:
- Unique content.
- Consistent participation.
- The "need" for this forum i.e. if you're going to make a Radio Controlled Car site, there are already many of those... if you do not post unique content and don't participate on your forum daily to make others do the same, your R/C forum won't be anything extraordinary and will just fall short.

So you can create a forum but if you're not going to upkeep it and participate or at least have a steady moderator who does the same then you won't be keeping up with social media anytime soon. To keep your forum relevant you could do integrations related to the social media platform you're targeting i.e. if you find your site spoken about on facebook regulary then by all means make a page for your forum on facebook with information about it, add modifications and plugins that help your members easily see content on facebook and such.

The sky is the limit, so is your imagination as to what you can do with your forum, if you're not being creative (or at least clever in a sense) then you're never going to keep up with social media or be relevant in said social media when the forum is "lacking" due to having copy and pasted content and/or not a lot of active daily members.

Are you sure you have visited all webmaster forums? have you visited my webmaster forum https://www.webmastersun.com/ ?after years my forum traffic is still increasing and improving daily with new members and posts.

Because forum owners just built forums for themselves without building for what users need or a community needs, or lacks of marketing and SEO.

My forum is getting less traffic from social networks, ~63% traffic came from search engines, social is only 1% although my forum has thousands of followers on Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin. I still am concentrating on social networks but prefer using SEO and marketing techniques.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2018/06/1.jpg

I have been using vbulletin to build a few forums over the years.

I have had great exceptional success in a couple of them , over 5 million hits per month with 70 plus paid advertisers. I did not pay for traffic just dedicated members.


Rules for success = The forum must be unique. That means loyal users.

Games , chat rooms etc don't help a forum.

You must have constant updated content and the best content is provided by users.

You must have a real easy to remember domain name.

Finally try to have a forum about something that you and others can have a long interesting conversation about and not be boring.

Selfies, social media events are all boring. You are competing with millions of others.

Now if you had a forum on how to make buggy whips that would be unique.

Otis :)

This seems highly unlikely, unless your the BBC news or similar

You are right, my forum dropped a lot traffic recent months and I could not do more to improve it, seem Google and other search engines are changing and everyone likes building websites than forums.

Only certain social media platforms allow the interaction that a forum with a thread format does. FB is OK but the rest seem inappropriate eg Twitter, Instgram

On social media threads soon disappear down the timeline and can't be accessed in a heirarchical way

Talking about that, social media is more like some kind of "eternal" right now, without much past and future. With forums, there's all three: right now, past and future.

Keep your users engaged. Use newsletters, and focus on great content. The days of simply having a chatroom are gone - and users crazy more than that.

Forums are one of the oldest and traditionally most reliable forms of communication on the internet. It's our job to ensure they continue - so engage your users often, and frequently as you can.

I didn't post on social media recent months, especially Facebook but no problem, the forum is still good and visitors and new members still come from search engines. I think we should focus on this source than spend too much time on social media.

It amazes me how forums have died in the past 5 years due to social media (which I despise), I still run two vB forums, but they're nothing like they used to be. :confused:

Very nice design!

How many active members?

https://www.webmastersun.com/forums/...-and-ecommerce ...

People seem to be blinded by social media. I get bored hearing people say they don't need a website because of it but the same applies as has been discussed in this thread. SM is too instantaneous and gone.

We need to bring them back. A great way to do that is to allows users to log in from Facebook and Twitter with ease. Then you need to just keep them coming back. That’s the hardest part.

Not only login from Facebook and Twitter but also embed Facekook and Twitter inside the templates.

Many people prefer the anonymity of a message board.

Well, the link in your signature is to a forum with NSFW content, and it's pretty easy to find adult content on the internet, if not from ads that are personalized to us tracking.

You have to offer your users something they can only find on your site.

I agree with this but it can be hard to do in saturated niches.

This is probably the most important question in reference to forums (or even web sites). It?s really difficult for us who been dealing with web pages since 2003 or so to migrate not only contents but the whole conception. If you think about it there?s a high chance that even social media will lose popularity very soon.
Forums used to be a home for everything, now it has came down to problems fixing. The social part of it has moved to other platforms.

I would love to know where the trend is going, damn! wouldn?t that be nice? :D

I hate social media especially ++++book.

Nowadays though.

Some sites i heard that once allowed nsfw are now starting to ban it.

Like Tumblr recently banned nsfw stuff a few years back.


One thing i wonder though is how much the so called Christian right is behind sites banning nsfw.

Sites like Focus on the family and AFA talk about the harms of nsfw, so i wonder if the Christian right has a hand in the banning of nsfw stuff from sites.

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Plus the first amendment says that there is a separation of church and state.