@Tracy Perry I don't even want to read what you wrote... Ok you're good
Show me one of your FB groups that goes into this detail. That is one of the MAJOR weakness of FB (or most social media) on actually developing content to actually relay information.
This article/guide is a work in progress. I'll be adding to it as time goes along and I pick up more useful information.. I will try to detail, in various pages of this article, some of the issues that cropped up for me as a beginner, and some...
astrowhat.com
I'm a member in about 32 FB groups.. but only about 2 am I active in. The remainder I simply go there if I need to make a post specific to that topic. I don't regularly read there as most of the content there tends to be "fluff".
We pretty much ALL know that FB is generally used by those that have very little to say (and rarely the intelligence to carry on a cognizant conversation). And why is it not that surprising that is what you "brag" about.
The simple fact remains... my site that has "only" 22 users (actually think it's up to 26 now) and ranks higher on that search term (WORLD wide) than the major site that has over 50K users does specific to the niche. The simple point being... quality content IS king. Doesn't matter how many users the site has. If it's interesting (and somewhat specific) content, it can rank higher than a site with more users. But honestly.. it's not really surprising to me that you are not aware of that.
I could easily "paywall" users off from that (and any of my other articles - which this topic is somewhat about) and FORCE them to sign in to see it and thereby gain more users... but I have a slightly different philosophy. I believe information is to be shared freely. The number of users are not important to me... it's the overall repeat traffic to the site (and a bounce rate of 35.8% is fairly decent compared to the 80+% a particular person was bragging about their site of) IS more important to me.
And not to mention that over 50% of those users visiting come from organic searches. And ironically the LARGE majority of those organic searches are related to actual ARTICLES on my site... not simple forum posts. So I guess the addition of
@Bob's AMS has so far benefitted my site (as has some of his other add-ons, but not to the extent of AMS). Of course, my site is WELL more than a "simple" forum.
Meanwhile... ignore the elephant in the room that says you can extend the forum to a LOT more than simple forum posts if you are willing to expend some actual money (and time creating valid content) and get a return on it.
Yet one more actual article (over a forum post) that returns in the first position for a web page for the search term provided (which once more is a typical one in the field). And honestly.. if I had done a video, it would probably have ranked up there also. I simply did not take the time to set up my Nikon D7200 and video the process.
The simple fact remains... fire-walling off posts (which are generally of LOW content) aren't going to gain you that much when compared to items like authoritative articles or extensions (link directories, classified ads and such).