Is facebook killing forums?!

[tbworld]

Originally Posted by kartik786

we are nearing 2015 now and its evident.. forums are dying!

I previously wrote in this thread about my daughters board, it went from 800 users to 23,000 (this last year) with 1200 active users a day. She does not try to compete against Facebook, instead she embraces the diversity. All of her members use Facebook to chat (in fact they must for registration), they go to her board for real content and the closeness of the private community.

Look at the number of cell phone forums, and most of them are doing pretty well. They shouldn't be as they are quite boring in unique content, but the topic is hot and the need for shared information is great. So for the time being they are thriving ... until the death of the product cycle.

Facebook will be here, until it is not. Create your strategy around that fact. If you are trying to compete against Facebook, why? You are never going to convince users to drop Facebook and come to your board. At best they will do both, each with their own unique strengths.

I liked @BBNZowner comment above, it showed he has a unique strategy. If you are looking at forums as a business, you cannot just stamp-out more metal paper clips without have a unique strategy for distribution of your product and a method to capture market share, or you will just end up having a garage full of paper clips.

Forum software is just a tool, keep in mind what you are trying to accomplish.

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by tbworld

I previously wrote in this thread about my daughters board, it went from 800 users to 23,000 (this last year) with 1200 active users a day. She does not try to compete against Facebook, instead she embraces the diversity. All of her members use Facebook to chat (in fact they must for registration), they go to her board for real content and the closeness of the private community.

Look at the number of cell phone forums, and most of them are doing pretty well. They shouldn't be as they are quite boring in unique content, but the topic is hot and the need for shared information is great. So for the time being they are thriving ... until the death of the product cycle.

Facebook will be here, until it is not. Create your strategy around that fact. If you are trying to compete against Facebook, why? You are never going to convince users to drop Facebook and come to your board. At best they will do both, each with their own unique strengths.

I liked @BBNZowner comment above, it showed he has a unique strategy. If you are looking at forums as a business, you cannot just stamp-out more metal paper clips without have a unique strategy for distribution of your product and a method to capture market share, or you will just end up having a garage full of paper clips.

Forum software is just a tool, keep in mind what you are trying to accomplish.

Yep embrace mobile and social, or most definitely die.

[kartik786]

Our activity at MBA forum has dropped considerably and I just can't get my head around "strategy" to get it buzzing again. I'd love to have someone on board who can do that for me

[tbworld]

Nice site, but it is living in the desktop era not the mobile / Facebook era. Your future audience (if not now) will be mobile. Examine your current competition and reposition your web site. We live in a world of quick information and conveying of ideas, your site needs to provide it, or new potential users will not return. You have an educated audience, find out their frustrations with your site and use new member responses only, not loyal board members.

Forum software and forum owners are not adapting to the faster pace world out there. Modern sites are costly to run and time consuming due to the interfacing of technology and fast moving trends. Your loyal board members will always be there, but as they switch to the mobile environment you need to be able to welcome them with an improved interface.

You should be positioning yourself to be one of the (5-10) apps the average mobile customer uses on their device daily. Forum software has a need out there, but it must serve at the convenience to the customer.

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by tbworld

Nice site, but it is living in the desktop era not the mobile / Facebook era. Your future audience (if not now) will be mobile. Examine your current competition and reposition your web site. We live in a world of quick information and conveying of ideas, your site needs to provide it, or new potential users will not return. You have an educated audience, find out their frustrations with your site and use new member responses only, not loyal board members.

Forum software and forum owners are not adapting to the faster pace world out there. Modern sites are costly to run and time consuming due to the interfacing of technology and fast moving trends. Your loyal board members will always be there, but as they switch to the mobile environment you need to be able to welcome them with an improved interface.

You should be positioning yourself to be one of the (5-10) apps the average mobile customer uses on their device daily. Forum software has a need out there, but it must serve at the convenience to the customer.

To all of this I would add, start paying attention to your WoL page, look at the user agent strings. Check out how many people are accessing your site with mobile browsers, you will be stunned. You have to get mobile browser friendly or you will lose this vast majority of online users. Check my profile for a little shortcut template edit for v3 I posted, that makes UA strings show up automatically for the admins, in WoL.

Cater to the mobile devices, or die.

[kartik786]

Originally Posted by tbworld

Nice site, but it is living in the desktop era not the mobile / Facebook era. Your future audience (if not now) will be mobile. Examine your current competition and reposition your web site. We live in a world of quick information and conveying of ideas, your site needs to provide it, or new potential users will not return. You have an educated audience, find out their frustrations with your site and use new member responses only, not loyal board members.

Forum software and forum owners are not adapting to the faster pace world out there. Modern sites are costly to run and time consuming due to the interfacing of technology and fast moving trends. Your loyal board members will always be there, but as they switch to the mobile environment you need to be able to welcome them with an improved interface.

You should be positioning yourself to be one of the (5-10) apps the average mobile customer uses on their device daily. Forum software has a need out there, but it must serve at the convenience to the customer.

Originally Posted by Max Taxable

To all of this I would add, start paying attention to your WoL page, look at the user agent strings. Check out how many people are accessing your site with mobile browsers, you will be stunned. You have to get mobile browser friendly or you will lose this vast majority of online users. Check my profile for a little shortcut template edit for v3 I posted, that makes UA strings show up automatically for the admins, in WoL.

Cater to the mobile devices, or die.

Thanks, I've been searching for how I can make the mobile thing possible for 3 days now. I'm not able to get much information on how vbulletin 3.8.3 version can be made mobile ready. There's something called MAPI or mobile styles but since official vbulletin.com has stopped supporting it, all links to it are dead.

I've opened a thread here yesterday : https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=314379

Any inputs on it would be much appreciated by people like me

[CAG CheechDogg]

Stop making things difficult for yourself, go to https://tapatalk.com/ , create an account and install it on your forums ... My members love this app and it is very easy to use my Man ... try it out you wont be disappointed ...

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by CAG CheechDogg

Stop making things difficult for yourself, go to https://tapatalk.com/ , create an account and install it on your forums ... My members love this app and it is very easy to use my Man ... try it out you wont be disappointed ...

Dunno how it would work with his 3.8.2, he definitely should consider upgrading to 3.8.7 at least if not 3.8.8.

[CAG CheechDogg]

Originally Posted by Max Taxable

Dunno how it would work with his 3.8.2, he definitely should consider upgrading to 3.8.7 at least if not 3.8.8.

He's on 3.8.3 Max...or am I reading wrong? His forum's footer also says 3.8.3 as well ...

[cellarius]

3.8.2 or 3.8.3 is not much of a difference. Either way, 3.8.8 is the version to run.