How fast did your community grow?

[Sim]

I should also mention that I've started other forums that failed to gain any significant traction - either due to the niche or the competition from other platforms.

To succeed and grow a community, you need to be able to offer people something they can't get from other established sites or other platforms / social media / etc.

 

[AjayJunkies]

I should also mention that I've started other forums that failed to gain any significant traction - either due to the niche or the competition from other platforms.

To succeed and grow a community, you need to be able to offer people something they can't get from other established sites or other platforms / social media / etc.

What do you do differently with ZooChat or your PropertyChat that other platforms don't offer?

 

[Suzanne O]

I only have 4 members so it's a matter of what we post up.

My forum is mainly a general discussion board.

We're going to try and do some things after the footy season finishes.

 

[Sim]

What do you do differently with ZooChat or your PropertyChat that other platforms don't offer?

A large part of it will be first-mover advantage.

ZooChat was started in 2003 - over 20 years ago. Social media wasn't as dominant back then, so easier to get traction.

But more specifically - our photo galleries are something you can't easily replicate with social media. We get just as much discussion about the photos as we do general threads - it's much more than simply posting some photos to Instagram or Facebook. For the original vBulletin version of the site, I used a heavily modified version of PhotoPost where all photos had their own vB discussion threads (kind of like how Resources here have their own thread) - this was very popular and I've received a lot of complaints after migrating to XenForo/XFMG when we lost this functionality. This is definitely something I'm planning to develop once I get the site upgraded to XF 2.x - make photo discussions real threads.

I should note that there are other zoo forums out there, but they are typically country-specific or language-specific.

PropertyChat grew quickly because we took over an existing community (Somersoft) that had been operating since 1999. I migrated Somersoft from WebBoard to vBulletin in 2002 and in 2015 the site was archived because the owners were retired and didn't have any interest in investing further in the site to cater for the growth in membership and effort required to maintain it. Instead, I started PropertyChat and the community migrated across - but none of the content, we started with zero posts! Somersoft still exists - I migrated it from vB to XenForo in 2016 and it is currently running XF 2.2 - but the site is read only and all user accounts have been disabled and passwords removed etc.

There is another important factor in the growth of both sites - I've been very strict with moderation. I have an extensive set of rules that we try to enforce consistently and a process for dealing with warnings that sees people automatically banned if they continue to create problems. The number one thing that puts a lot of people off contributing to a site - is being abused by other members.

Finding the balance between fostering robust discussion and stopping abuse is an important factor. Any site that gains a significant following will inevitably attract trolls at some point - it is important to have strategies for how to deal with the conflict they will create.

 

[Deleted member 184953]

@Sim would you have the courage to create a forum from scratch today?

 

[Sim]

@Sim would you have the courage to create a forum from scratch today?

Only if I had a niche I was passionate about, already had a lot of expert-level knowledge about myself (so I can foster the initial discussion while the community grows) and I thought was under-served and suited the forum platform well.

One critical differentiator between forums and social media is the ability to foster longer-form content on forums that just doesn't work as well on social media.

Social media is typically: short or long post followed by a bunch of short comments as replies. On forums it's not unusual to see replies that are as long if not longer than the original post.

If the content for your niche typically follows that pattern of short comments in response - then you'll have a difficult time competing against the incumbent social media platforms which already offer that pattern.

I did try and start a new forum a couple of years back, but discarded the idea after a year or so of operating the site, when I concluded that I was not able to offer anything significantly differentiated from what was already on social media. I may have persisted - but I also found that discussions in the niche were often very parochial and arguments would break out in the comments section frequently. In the end I decided that I didn't want to be spending all of my time moderating the fights that were based on ideologies rather than common wisdom or anything constructive. It would be like trying to start a forum on politics - if you're happy for people to just yell at each other online - then go for it, but otherwise it's just far too much work to moderate.

At the end of the day - I'm already working full time running my sites - I don't really have time to devote to a new site which may not bring in any meaningful revenue for a very long time and I certainly don't have time for any more hobbies.

If I found an under-served niche that had really good revenue potential and I was confident I could grow a community quickly, then I might take it on.

 

[Deleted member 184953]

Passion, niche, time. The trio to succeed, or at least to give yourself the chance to succeed...
There were the criers, then the printing press, then computers and the internet and now social networks... And tomorrow?

I could compare the forums to a kind of rebellion, like in those science fiction films where on the surface everything is dark, led by a super power but underground, some people continue to try to live with different values but it's is a daily struggle...

 

[ForumFan]

Only if I had a niche I was passionate about, already had a lot of expert-level knowledge about myself (so I can foster the initial discussion while the community grows) and I thought was under-served and suited the forum platform well.

One critical differentiator between forums and social media is the ability to foster longer-form content on forums that just doesn't work as well on social media.

Social media is typically: short or long post followed by a bunch of short comments as replies. On forums it's not unusual to see replies that are as long if not longer than the original post.

If the content for your niche typically follows that pattern of short comments in response - then you'll have a difficult time competing against the incumbent social media platforms which already offer that pattern.

This may be the best and most concise explanation of forums vs social media sites like FB, Reddit, etc... and the advantages of the forum platform... that I've seen. Well articulated! That's quotable stuff right there. And it's also why I think forums haven't died and why they are enjoying a resurgence.