Okay, I launched my new site. Now what?

Levina

Levina

Member
How or where do I find people to sign up?

My former forum seems to think I'm a threat. They removed a link to my new site from my sig (which is something that is allowed per the forum rules - I put those in myself! 😅 ) And they have taken away my PM permissions. I can't send out PM's. Apparently they are afraid I would start recruiting. I have no intention to. It's a community I helped build and I don't want to harm it, just to get to the staff. What did happen is the staff came over to my site and immediately changed some of the layout on theirs, putting in sidebars where there were none. Copy catting me it seems. So it's rather the other way around.

But anyway, back on topic: where do I find new members?

I'm not on social media. Should I? And then, how does that work in recruiting people there? Any tips, hints, advice? Help maybe even?
 
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If these are the premises, you could have saved the money for the license...
99% of users are on social media and you are not on social media...
Where you go to look for that 1% I have no idea...
 
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Ricsca said:
If these are the premises, you could have saved the money for the license...
99% of users are on social media and you are not on social media...
Where you go to look for that 1% I have no idea...
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Well, I am fully prepared to go on social media for this.

Maybe you can give me some pointers as to the best places to hang out. On Facebook, X, Bluesky? Instagram too maybe?
 
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cdub said:
Find at least one other person interested in the niche and start writing a ton of content so Google can find you.
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Okay. Thanks. Now to find such a person...

Funny thing is that google is already crawling. Bingbot too. I've even seen the DuckDuckGo bot. And tons of Yandex bots the first couple of days. But then, I put up quite a bit of content. I should continue to do that then. It's just that it's all me at the moment and I was thinking that that doesn't look so good?
 
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Social Media is a good place to advertise your site - however, there is no magic involved in getting the people on there to sign up to your forum. Social Media platforms are for consumers, not really contributors even though they do post, but the content is generally banal or political. I post on X every single day with a movie of the day and album of the day to promote my Movie site and Rock Music site (links in my sig). The movie site has over 50,000 page views and 13 non-contributing members after being around since October 2022. My Music site has had over 4,000 page views since October 2024 and I have 4 non-contributing members. So, lots of visits, no traction.

The Movie site has over 1800 movies (so lots of content) the Rock Music site has over 1,400 albums all with Spotify play lists (so, again lots of content). No one is interested in signing up to even use reactions, let alone heaven forbid they actually say something along the lines of 'Hey, that's a great movie' or 'what a fantastic album that is' - they consume. Sadly, that's what people do these days, only those who open up forums contribute, everyone else consumes. Of course, established forums will have traction, and they may still have sign-ups, whether the new sign-ups actually contribute is another story.

So, no magic to getting people to sign up - just a hope that someone will and actually make some worthwhile contributions. It's a hard reality check, but that's the way the landscape is nowadays. Just do the best you can and hope - wishing you all the luck in the world, and I 'hope' that you do get a few of the rare breed signing up that we all used to take for granted back in the day.
 
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Davyc said:
the Rock Music site has over 1,400 albums all with Spotify play lists (so, again lots of content). No one is interested in signing up
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I recently started a band fan site just for fun and there's not much activity it except one other person occasionally. Granted I only have time or motivation to put into it in spurts. Totally a just for fun project so I don't really care I have another moderately active site. But it's hard out there.
 
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You need to start advertising.

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There’s loads more to get your first members registered. Feel free to PM me on Administrata, and I’ll send you some more links where advertising is allowed.
 
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Davyc said:
Social Media is a good place to advertise your site - however, there is no magic involved in getting the people on there to sign up to your forum. Social Media platforms are for consumers, not really contributors even though they do post, but the content is generally banal or political. I post on X every single day with a movie of the day and album of the day to promote my Movie site and Rock Music site (links in my sig). The movie site has over 50,000 page views and 13 non-contributing members after being around since October 2022. My Music site has had over 4,000 page views since October 2024 and I have 4 non-contributing members. So, lots of visits, no traction.

The Movie site has over 1800 movies (so lots of content) the Rock Music site has over 1,400 albums all with Spotify play lists (so, again lots of content). No one is interested in signing up to even use reactions, let alone heaven forbid they actually say something along the lines of 'Hey, that's a great movie' or 'what a fantastic album that is' - they consume. Sadly, that's what people do these days, only those who open up forums contribute, everyone else consumes. Of course, established forums will have traction, and they may still have sign-ups, whether the new sign-ups actually contribute is another story.

So, no magic to getting people to sign up - just a hope that someone will and actually make some worthwhile contributions. It's a hard reality check, but that's the way the landscape is nowadays. Just do the best you can and hope - wishing you all the luck in the world, and I 'hope' that you do get a few of the rare breed signing up that we all used to take for granted back in the day.
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I hear you.

My old forum had the best start possible because an existing community was waiting in the wings after our old, 22 year old forum, shut down. We had about 1200 members sign up within 6 weeks I think it was. And they were all active members.

But after that new people, not from the old community, signing up rarely became active members. They signed up to get access to some resources, or to look at nekkid women in our Glamour and Nude section. But hardly any started posting. So yeah, it's a problem.

I'm not expecting miracles, I would just like to have a bit of a start. I would be really happy with a small, but active user base. A few dozen is all it would take for now. Ten posts a day would make me happy already. I don't know if that's realistic but I'm hoping anyway and I will do what I can to make that possible. Even go on social media...

Thanks Davy.
 
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CedricV said:
You need to start advertising.

Administrata - Empowering Community Leaders

Administrata.net is an admin-empowering community dedicated to providing resources, tools, and support for community leaders and forum owners. We focus on key aspects of successful community building, including growth strategies, leadership development, sustainability, platform customization...
administrata.net administrata.net

There’s loads more to get your first members registered. Feel free to PM me on Administrata, and I’ll send you some more links where advertising is allowed.
Click to expand...
Oh, thanks! I'm going over right away to have a look!
 
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Levina said:
I don't know. People I can think of I can't reach any longer as they have taken away my PM permissions.
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Would it be possible to create a separate account and PM them from that, identifying yourself as your old username, maybe? Also, use a VPN so that the IP address can't be used to relate the two accounts and only PM members whom you trust not to rat you out, or you'll get an instaban.

I know how hard it is to get traction and then sustain it. My forum is still going, but if it had been anything other than a strict hobby without advertising, I would have considered it a failure and shut it down. What gets me, is that it did actually start to get some traction a couple of years ago, averaging 20-40 posts a day, but then dropped right back down. Frustrating indeed.

Also, so many new users register and then never log in again. Why? What was the point of doing it in the first place? After all, registering is a very deliberate process that runs them through the gauntlet of the captcha system, so why never log in again?

A few I've identified as dormant spammers and killed their accounts, but the rest just look like inactive users to me. I just don't get it and it's very annoying.
 
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FTL said:
Would it be possible to create a separate account and PM them from that, identifying yourself as your old username, maybe? Also, use a VPN so that the IP address can't be used to relate the two accounts and only PM members whom you trust not to rat you out, or you'll get an instaban.
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Well, that would be an option and I thought about it, but I don't know, I don't think that is the way to go. People will learn about my site and if they are curious they know how to find me.

FTL said:
I know how hard it is to get traction and then sustain it. My forum is still going, but if it had been anything other than a strict hobby without advertising, I would have considered it a failure and shut it down. What gets me, is that it did actually start to get some traction a couple of years ago, averaging 20-40 posts a day, but then dropped right back down. Frustrating indeed.

Also, so many new users register and then never log in again. Why? What was the point of doing it in the first place? After all, registering is a very deliberate process that runs them through the gauntlet of the captcha system, so why never log in again?

A few I've identified as dormant spammers and killed their accounts, but the rest just look like inactive users to me. I just don't get it and it's very annoying.
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I don't get it either. Possibly to get access to hidden forums (G&N, Classifieds) and being able to download resources when guests are not allowed to do so. But some register and never even respond to the confirmation email. It's weird.
 
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FTL said:
Also, so many new users register and then never log in again. Why? What was the point of doing it in the first place? After all, registering is a very deliberate process that runs them through the gauntlet of the captcha system, so why never log in again?
Click to expand...
I can empathise with this - the few that did go through the registration process never came back; perhaps they thought something extra or magical would happen when they registered, lol :)
 
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