[webmastersun]

Originally Posted by kevcj

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.

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.

Originally Posted by kevcj

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?

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

Originally Posted by kevcj

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?

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.