TalkFranklin.com

After having the site up for a couple of months, traffic has been scarce and participation non-existent. I've promoted it via the city's Facebook page, did a little Facebook advertising and reached out to local merchants to list their business. I'm not seeing the results I expected and, before investing more money into it's promotion, wanted to address a couple of concerns:

1. Is a message board something people are interested in for a city? The Facebook page has 2.5k likes so I'd assumed that means people are very interested.

2. Is the format of the message board easy enough for people to learn or does it seem to be overwhelming when compared to Facebook? I've included tutorials but, I assume, someone would really want to take part in order to read/learn if they didn't already know message boards.

I'm too close to the site to be as objective as I need to be. If anyone wants to take the time to give it a look, I'd appreciate their thoughts. Thanks.

http://www.talkfranklin.com.
 
After having the site up for a couple of months, traffic has been scarce and participation non-existent. I've promoted it via the city's Facebook page, did a little Facebook advertising and reached out to local merchants to list their business. I'm not seeing the results I expected and, before investing more money into it's promotion, wanted to address a couple of concerns:

1. Is a message board something people are interested in for a city? The Facebook page has 2.5k likes so I'd assumed that means people are very interested.

2. Is the format of the message board easy enough for people to learn or does it seem to be overwhelming when compared to Facebook? I've included tutorials but, I assume, someone would really want to take part in order to read/learn if they didn't already know message boards.

I'm too close to the site to be as objective as I need to be. If anyone wants to take the time to give it a look, I'd appreciate their thoughts. Thanks.

http://www.talkfranklin.com.

Have you thought about organizing some kind of events ,gatherings etc ? I mean i run small city based local forum as well . It took me 2years finally to get some activity going on . My site is about fishing tho but having monthly get together,bbq events etc ,handing out site flyers have always helped . Facebook makes things difficult , probably you can work on some special discount coupons with local merchants as well to see if that works out .

Sometimes there should be some heated topics related to the community which people want to discuss about on board . Just a idea.
 
1. Is a message board something people are interested in for a city? The Facebook page has 2.5k likes so I'd assumed that means people are very interested.

It depends on the city. My city has one, it's forum section is active but the primary purpose is to be a classifieds. It look like garbage, full of ads and poor colour choices. People still use it because fits a purpose and that's what your forum needs to do. Forum owners sometimes get too focused on pretty colours, layouts and the latest mods and forget about their niche and the people they are trying to reach out to (not saying this is your case here). Keep it very simple... keep advertising, get friends and family to post, keep the quality content coming and stay with it. Forum success is a long road but you'll get there.
 
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