Daniel Hood
Well-known member
They allow you to make tabs on your page/group that essentially iframes a site. Could utilize that. It'd require a different theme though because you don't necessarily want a big header, menu, etc in it.
Why do users like Facebook so much?
- Thread starter JamesBrown
- Start date
Daniel Hood
Well-known member
All of that's possible. Really with it being within the facebook frame, you could easily block the entire site until they grant permissions (which would be connecting their facebook - i.e. registering). Triggering facebook notifications is allowed.
19ninety
Member
It's an age thing in some ways, recent generations have grown up with FB being pretty much the hub of the internet, and only leaving it when they can't find what they want on FB. FB got it so right it's unbelievable really, it's so convenient there is hardly any reason for many people to anything but browse it, it's also so simple that anyone can use it.
I'm trying to keep my head high but can't ignore that FB is competition I possibly can't better. I can't even get friends and family off Facecrap and on to my forum. People don't seem to want to step out from the comfort of it's convenience. That's a word I keep saying, convenience, it's so easy and fast isn't it, to have everything in one place. All you're friends, and their Likes, live chat, uploads your photos and with a press on your mobile screen you can share them here or there, with friends or in 10 Groups ... all from the comfort of your desk at work or the sofa, or on the train or at the gym.
Trying to get people to take time out from FB to register on a forum, work out how to use it (yea, it's easy ... but it ain't FB), create a thread and maybe upload a couple of photos, seems near impossible. If a FB user can't get an answer to a question in a group from one of the 10,000+ members plus members, they turn to Google, get the answer from a forum or blog post and go back to FB.
Some niche interests fare better on forums, not everyone wants certain things seen by their friends and family on FB, certain interests appeal to certain mentalities too, they may prefer forums over social sites. Mostly it boils down to the convenience generation.
I think I just had my first forum rant, exciting!
I'm trying to keep my head high but can't ignore that FB is competition I possibly can't better. I can't even get friends and family off Facecrap and on to my forum. People don't seem to want to step out from the comfort of it's convenience. That's a word I keep saying, convenience, it's so easy and fast isn't it, to have everything in one place. All you're friends, and their Likes, live chat, uploads your photos and with a press on your mobile screen you can share them here or there, with friends or in 10 Groups ... all from the comfort of your desk at work or the sofa, or on the train or at the gym.
Trying to get people to take time out from FB to register on a forum, work out how to use it (yea, it's easy ... but it ain't FB), create a thread and maybe upload a couple of photos, seems near impossible. If a FB user can't get an answer to a question in a group from one of the 10,000+ members plus members, they turn to Google, get the answer from a forum or blog post and go back to FB.
Some niche interests fare better on forums, not everyone wants certain things seen by their friends and family on FB, certain interests appeal to certain mentalities too, they may prefer forums over social sites. Mostly it boils down to the convenience generation.
I think I just had my first forum rant, exciting!
lostincable
Active member
So is there an add-on that will allow -
1) Facebook > Xenforo posts so when someone posts to Facebook it gets added to your xenforo site?
2) The reverse of the above
I am loosing alot of traffic to our site to a group that has been setup.
Facebook is deeply integrated with your life already and so many people have it the sheer scale of reach and potenial damage it can do to forums is undeniable.
Regardless of what you think you take a photo on your phone, post it to instagram which then gets posted to Facebook and then it's added to a group and a discussion ensues. You then share that photo hundreds of times and the group is larger than most sites in a matter of days / weeks.
Then there is no need to post to a xenforo site and the cycle continues.
I get the die hards will always prefer a website vs Facebook mainly due to structure, search etc. but I hate to say it if something doesn't change soon alot of niche sites will loose the battle as Facebook improves groups and they continue to grow in reach.
1) Facebook > Xenforo posts so when someone posts to Facebook it gets added to your xenforo site?
2) The reverse of the above
I am loosing alot of traffic to our site to a group that has been setup.
Facebook is deeply integrated with your life already and so many people have it the sheer scale of reach and potenial damage it can do to forums is undeniable.
Regardless of what you think you take a photo on your phone, post it to instagram which then gets posted to Facebook and then it's added to a group and a discussion ensues. You then share that photo hundreds of times and the group is larger than most sites in a matter of days / weeks.
Then there is no need to post to a xenforo site and the cycle continues.
I get the die hards will always prefer a website vs Facebook mainly due to structure, search etc. but I hate to say it if something doesn't change soon alot of niche sites will loose the battle as Facebook improves groups and they continue to grow in reach.
19ninety
Member
That's another key word in this, integration, FB mobile app makes everything even easier as it's always in your pocket, always just a swipe of your screen away.
I haven't looked yet, is there a decent mobile app to offer the same ease of access to Xenforo forums, one that takes the forum to the user. Push notifications, ease of use on a hand held device with a small screen, simple uploads, Share buttons, etc.
I was thinking about share buttons last night, should I remove the FB one? I understand that if someone shares one of my pages it's free advertising. The Hope being that others will see it and follow the link back to my forum and join. However so many people don't seem to want or need to step outside from warm cozy FacebookNet in to the big cold scarey Internet to find information or social discussions, is sharing to FB just feeding the behemoth?
I have to wonder, how long until FB does a bit more coding and adds forum style controls and structure to it's groups... Or as an additional style/type of group.
I haven't looked yet, is there a decent mobile app to offer the same ease of access to Xenforo forums, one that takes the forum to the user. Push notifications, ease of use on a hand held device with a small screen, simple uploads, Share buttons, etc.
I was thinking about share buttons last night, should I remove the FB one? I understand that if someone shares one of my pages it's free advertising. The Hope being that others will see it and follow the link back to my forum and join. However so many people don't seem to want or need to step outside from warm cozy FacebookNet in to the big cold scarey Internet to find information or social discussions, is sharing to FB just feeding the behemoth?
I have to wonder, how long until FB does a bit more coding and adds forum style controls and structure to it's groups... Or as an additional style/type of group.
tommydamic68
Well-known member
As I have been saying for years, if the right forum developer came up with a trustworthy - well developed app like Tapatalk it would win half the battle. An app that works with ease via mobile like FB. Also recently I have tried to stay ahead of the game and as the old adage says, "If you can't beat em - join em!" I have started a FB group BUT I DO NOT advertise the group on my forum. The group naturally is growing with just organic traffic and word of mouth and my forum name is well known and the largest in my niche. We will see how it goes in the years to come.
19ninety
Member
Well that's a Kickstarter project I'd back!!
I have a small FB group too, all I really do is post forum links in there with a taster pic or snippet to entice people to click the link. The FB group is growing slowly, and currently has 5x the members my forum does. I try and apply the same methods to Instagram and Twitter, but there is a reason people us those three social platforms (all of which have apps) and luring them away is near impossible. As good as Xenforo looks on a decent smart phone, its still not as clean and simple as a dedicated app sadly.
I just hope all my many many hours for a tiny forum pay off!!
I have a small FB group too, all I really do is post forum links in there with a taster pic or snippet to entice people to click the link. The FB group is growing slowly, and currently has 5x the members my forum does. I try and apply the same methods to Instagram and Twitter, but there is a reason people us those three social platforms (all of which have apps) and luring them away is near impossible. As good as Xenforo looks on a decent smart phone, its still not as clean and simple as a dedicated app sadly.
I just hope all my many many hours for a tiny forum pay off!!
I use groups myself for staff discussions related to some events I'm involved in where it makes sense as you don't really need to dig through archives as it's just to keep everyone in the loop as to what's going on. However, I'm curious about the actual participation ratio in these large groups as to me a lot of it seems like the Meetup.com effect where you have a lot of groups with a lot of members but only a handful actually show up to the meetup. In these large FB groups that you guys have, do a lot of people actually participate or did they just click the join button and go on their merry way?
kiffsta
Member
How do we go the other way, ie a post on a forum gets published into a Facebook group , much like an RSS Feed , this way people can see forum traffic on Facebook groups ?
