Something to think about with social networking sites

Dark Matter

Active member
There's been a big boom in the amount of forum owners now using lots of different social networking sites to send threads and posts into automatically from their community. But just have a think about this for a second, are you cutting your own wrist by doing it?

If your sending tweets for example into twitter on all new threads posted on your forum, why would your friends now need to visit your community as much like before to see what's new there? And simply because you decided to start sending forum content into it. There's also a chance of course, that they might start talking about threads sent into Twitter or Facebook there itself, rather than visiting your forum board and posting a reply back on it. Just want to get your views on this one generally as a forum owner yourself?

Do you ever stop for a second and wonder if the way you use social networking sites (to try and promote your forum), is actually doing it more harm than good.
 
I send a thread title and link to the thread on my site - to Twitter and FB. So they do have to visit my site to read them.
 
Yea you don't post the whole thing on social network site. Only links and some previews.

There are TONS more people on such site. Whatever topics you post might attract someone new to take a look
 
I should have made it clear before that I know only the title link, not full thread or post content gets sent. But even so, a person could look at that title and decide it doesn't interest them to visit and read it, or they do go visit and read and decide to post a reply about it in twitter instead (seeing as it's mentioned there of a sorts) with the title link already, plus it's more convenient for them to do it that way faster.

What I'm getting at really, I've had a few cases where I did the same sending thread titles into Twitter only to get replies send about them back to me in Twitter, and yes even after they visited the forum to read it. Had I not been running a Twitter account to mention it there, that person would not have had the option to post a reply about it in Twitter after reading it, they would have needed to use the forums.

But anyway, I'm just generalizing on what peoples views are about it all when coming to helping, or not helping your community.
 
Had I not been running a Twitter account to mention it there, that person would not have had the option to post a reply about it in Twitter after reading it, they would have needed to use the forums.

On the other hand, had you not been running a Twitter account to mention it, that person may not have known about the post at all.
As the old saying goes, you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
 
On the other hand, had you not been running a Twitter account to mention it, that person may not have known about the post at all.
As the old saying goes, you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
That was my thought exactly. :) Provide the thread title or details on what's to come in the link, and let the link bring them to the site. If they were to reply to my tweet, I'd probably suggest that they register for an account and post there (after all, it's free ;)).
 
I tweet every week or 2 weeks, depending on when there's a Grand Prix on.

Twitter has been responsible for a lot of traffic to my site (as I use the #F1 tag), including some famous names from the F1 fraternity.

Facebook on the other hand is useless for generating traffic as only my "friends" see it and they're either already members of the site, or aren't interested.
 
I tweet every week or 2 weeks, depending on when there's a Grand Prix on.

Twitter has been responsible for a lot of traffic to my site (as I use the #F1 tag), including some famous names from the F1 fraternity.

Facebook on the other hand is useless for generating traffic as only my "friends" see it and they're either already members of the site, or aren't interested.
I've had the same experience--the only non-friend traffic I get via FB is if I tag a musician in a photo (i.e. a cover for their new single) and a fan sees it, but usually even then it's just a like or a comment and they don't follow through to the site. Twitter's been better since I can tag artists, which sometimes causes them to retweet it (had that happen a couple days ago :)), and some of the more extreme fan bases watch for mentions of their artist and promote for their favorites.
 
I tweet every week or 2 weeks, depending on when there's a Grand Prix on.

Twitter has been responsible for a lot of traffic to my site (as I use the #F1 tag), including some famous names from the F1 fraternity.

Facebook on the other hand is useless for generating traffic as only my "friends" see it and they're either already members of the site, or aren't interested.

My settings are such that everyone sees my posts, not just friends. It, too, has been responsible for generating quite a bit of traffic to my site.
 
My settings are such that everyone sees my posts, not just friends. It, too, has been responsible for generating quite a bit of traffic to my site.
Mine are, too, but since search isn't used in the same way as it works on Twitter, it rarely gets seen by people other than those who've liked your page (most of whom are already on the site anyway).
 
Well it's not even a month i started this small community forum which is all about fishing i simply opened a facebook page after a while which seems to be driving nice traffic and registration once in a while . Fairly i haven't done anything like advertisment for site anywhere else at all . I have Rss feeds setup for few sections and we are doing really good these days .
 
I should have made it clear before that I know only the title link, not full thread or post content gets sent. But even so, a person could look at that title and decide it doesn't interest them to visit and read it, or they do go visit and read and decide to post a reply about it in twitter instead (seeing as it's mentioned there of a sorts) with the title link already, plus it's more convenient for them to do it that way faster.

What I'm getting at really, I've had a few cases where I did the same sending thread titles into Twitter only to get replies send about them back to me in Twitter, and yes even after they visited the forum to read it. Had I not been running a Twitter account to mention it there, that person would not have had the option to post a reply about it in Twitter after reading it, they would have needed to use the forums.

But anyway, I'm just generalizing on what peoples views are about it all when coming to helping, or not helping your community.
There could also be the put-off affect. Take this thread for example. If I saw the title on twitter or Facebook, I would take a look at it thinking there might be some useful information. I would be put-off to discover a fairly useless rant.
 
Couple of things that I do....

I don't post a link for every thread that's created, or even threads I create. Instead, I'll post a link if a thread is 'hot'. However, it's not a just a title it's something like, "The Stethoscope thread is heating up. Which do you use?" and then post the link. For my weather forum I'd write, "Click here to read about the high risk of severe weather today: (link)." It's more of a call to action.

I'll also post something on FB and/or Twitter if there's problems with the forum, and spin it positively if I can. Recently we had some problems with the forum when some settings on the server were changed. I posted that I knew about the problem, then gave them an alternative way to view it. Tapatalk was working flawlessly so I suggested that they use that to view and comment. Then, since it's an EMT/Paramedic forum, when everything was coming back online I posted, "Thanks to the LP12 we have a stable rhythm again. Thanks for your patience!" It's all about being unique and not boring, in my opinion.
 
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