Facebook vs Forum?

[tommydamic68]

Hello all,
Something recently had happened to my Facebook account that I had created many years ago to use as a tool to gain members only forum, it was removed due to it being considered a "business." The issue is, I had 5000 friends and had many people share pictures and even ask questions that enabled me to link - direct them to the forum and I had received may members this way.

I have even had Facebook friends ask what happened and they are upset they can no longer share pictures on my page. Now I do have a "page" also but they cannot randomly she photos of their cats (thats what my forum niche is.) I believe Facebook is a good gateway to my forum which it has proven over the years.

So here is the question:

1. should I create a Facebook "group" which would allow Facebook individuals the begin sharing photos again and maybe ask questions allowing for me to redirect them to the forum?

2. Will I really lose members or lose activity on the forum? (from what I have seen in 7 the years of having Facebook, Facebook people are Facebook people and will generally only visit the forum when in need of help.)

Thanks for any input.

 

[Yogesh Sarkar]

Did you use your own name or name of your forum?

If you used name of your forum, then you violated their TOS and that is why you got banned. The specifically mention that you cannot have a business account i.e. create a account under a business name, for that they have pages and groups.

Considering your usage of Facebook, creating a Facebook Group would be a good idea.

A have personal account, FB Page and Group for my forum.

 

[tommydamic68]

Did you use your own name or name of your forum?

If you used name of your forum, then you violated their TOS and that is why you got banned. The specifically mention that you cannot have a business account i.e. create a account under a business name, for that they have pages and groups.

Considering your usage of Facebook, creating a Facebook Group would be a good idea.

A have personal account, FB Page and Group for my forum.

Yes, back in 2009 when I started FB - I made it a personal account with my forum name. As I had said, I do have a "page" now but its limited to what the FB users are used to, pretty much just adding pictures and commenting with oohs and aahs. I just don't want to chance pulling anyone or deterring them from the forum.

 

[Yogesh Sarkar]

It isn't a personal account in the eyes of FB, if you aren't using your own name.

 

[rafass]

I loathe Facebook and all that environment.
I can't stay there more than 10 minutes.

 

[BassMan]

I use dlvr.it to post new posts to Facebook and other social networks. That way I redirect users to my forum which also helps with traffic. Facebook login as an option on my forum also helps. I don't want to use social networks for other stuff, because it is very important to have users on forum.

But I also think it's important what you offer on your forum, how entertaining or educational it is (depending on the forum niche). I know users will register my forum, because I have a niche, that is important in my country for certain people.

I can agree with that: Facebook people are Facebook people. Mostly it's really like that and I don't need them. They are mayflies in my view.

Same happened to me. I used to have FB account, but need to change it to FB page and I can say it's even better now.

If I noticed that social networks wouldn't help me with juice to my forum, than I'll remove it.

 

[ForestForTrees]

1. should I create a Facebook "group" which would allow Facebook individuals the begin sharing photos again and maybe ask questions allowing for me to redirect them to the forum?

2. Will I really lose members or lose activity on the forum? (from what I have seen in 7 the years of having Facebook, Facebook people are Facebook people and will generally only visit the forum when in need of help.)

We have a FB page but not an FB Group. Eventually, it's a priority for us to create an FB Group for "alumni" of our forum.

In our niche, many great members stop visiting the forum after a while because they have "moved on." They still care about the forum and the subject, but they are too busy to make time to come back and visit it. Some of these people still keep regularly visiting Facebook, though. (No matter how good we make our forum, this will always be true to some degree. It's just the way of the world in our niche.) Getting them to join our Page and Group strengthens the community because it keeps them in our ecosystem. Since they've been around for a while, they know a lot, so they can bring a lot to the conversation. Further, if content related to our site appears periodically in their FB feed, they're more likely to drop by the site once in a while to get the full experience.

Clearly, things may be very different for other sites. Every community is different, after all. The fact that we are a 501c3 nonprofit means that maintaining connections with old members is important for us financially in addition to how it affects our forum. But for our nonprofit and community, a Facebook Page and Facebook Group are a great complement to our forum.

 

[tommydamic68]

We have a FB page but not an FB Group. Eventually, it's a priority for us to create an FB Group for "alumni" of our forum.

In our niche, many great members stop visiting the forum after a while because they have "moved on." They still care about the forum and the subject, but they are too busy to make time to come back and visit it. Some of these people still keep regularly visiting Facebook, though. (No matter how good we make our forum, this will always be true to some degree. It's just the way of the world in our niche.) Getting them to join our Page and Group strengthens the community because it keeps them in our ecosystem. Since they've been around for a while, they know a lot, so they can bring a lot to the conversation. Further, if content related to our site appears periodically in their FB feed, they're more likely to drop by the site once in a while to get the full experience.

Clearly, things may be very different for other sites. Every community is different, after all. The fact that we are a 501c3 nonprofit means that maintaining connections with old members is important for us financially in addition to how it affects our forum. But for our nonprofit and community, a Facebook Page and Facebook Group are a great complement to our forum.

Well said. My niche is a small one but the type of cat my forum it is about has a large community on Facebook, its where many of my members were sought out over the years. People are on Facebook, their always connected via mobile phone, iPads - etc. It's just too easy to visit/ chat with friends, family, play games, check in on groups etc. all in one shot on FB.

Even with all those social logins offered on forum software, the true fact is, in some communities, its just easier to do it all in on FB. As you said, every forum community is different as far as social network interactions, Like I said, really, with the small revenues I make due to mobile phones and Tapatalk, it's almost tempting to build my community on FB. I guess figuring out how to get all the years of pertinent information from the forum to FB would be the challenge.

 

[Yogesh Sarkar]

FB groups are fun, but frankly speaking, for any specialized niche a forum works best. FB can't offer the level of organization a forum has and that to me is the primary reason, why we might lose some members to FB but it can't wipe us out (not that it isn't trying.)

 

[saucylost]

I had tried to sneak in an actual account using my forum name and friend people and basically do what OP did. Facebook shut me down the next day. It's too bad because many people will friend you just too have lots of friends and you can then share content from your board and maybe they will then share, etc. Facebook sucks though. I do keep a Facebook, Twitter and Google+ page for my forum and update daily.