Day 273: Social Media

[Homer Potvin]

Hey hey. I've been kicking around ideas to expand the forum lately and wanted to return to social media. This was part of the original plan when we migrated in May, but real life got in the way, and I don't like to start things I can't finish. All the time in the world now, so I'm ready to jump back on that.

I'm going to start with a Facebook business page, as that is essentially what this is in social media world. It's an organization, not a person, so whether it's for profit or not is irrelevant.

I'm not a social media guy at all, and I know FB is dated, but it's still the best platform for organizations (I hear) and probably has as good a shot as attracting aspiring writers as any other, demographic wise. Plus, aggregating that with IG or whatever isn't a big deal. Or so I'm told. I hadn't even logged into my FB page in probably 5 years before yesterday. I know a lot about marketing products and the classical tips and tricks, but little about the actual technology the cool kids use these days.

Anybody really into this shit? I'm open to advice.

 

[Trish]

Hey hey. I've been kicking around ideas to expand the forum lately and wanted to return to social media. This was part of the original plan when we migrated in May, but real life got in the way, and I don't like to start things I can't finish. All the time in the world now, so I'm ready to jump back on that.

I'm going to start with a Facebook business page, as that is essentially what this is in social media world. It's an organization, not a person, so whether it's for profit or not is irrelevant.

I'm not a social media guy at all, and I know FB is dated, but it's still the best platform for organizations (I hear) and probably has as good a shot as attracting aspiring writers as any other, demographic wise. Plus, aggregating that with IG or whatever isn't a big deal. Or so I'm told. I hadn't even logged into my FB page in probably 5 years before yesterday. I know a lot about marketing products and the classical tips and tricks, but little about the actual technology the cool kids use these days.

Anybody really into this shit? I'm open to advice.

I avoid it like the plague it is, but it is helpful. I admin a couple of very niche (non writing) groups, one of which has over 17k very active members (along with 6 other people, really I'm barely active anymore and mostly just talk to my fellow admins in a group chat) so I do know some things if you get stuck admin wise. Business page, I've had a couple, but I'm not the type to hawk my wares every 10 seconds and for me, groups have been far easier. Especially if it's a PRIVATE group. People don't like to comment on public groups where all their friends can see every thing they say and give them shit about it. Probably not helpful for your plan, but that's where my knowledge lies if you need help in that vein.

 

[Homer Potvin]

I avoid it like the plague it is, but it is helpful. I admin a couple of very niche (non writing) groups, one of which has over 17k very active members (along with 6 other people, really I'm barely active anymore and mostly just talk to my fellow admins in a group chat) so I do know some things if you get stuck admin wise. Business page, I've had a couple, but I'm not the type to hawk my wares every 10 seconds and for me, groups have been far easier. Especially if it's a PRIVATE group. People don't like to comment on public groups where all their friends can see every thing they say and give them shit about it. Probably not helpful for your plan, but that's where my knowledge lies if you need help in that vein.

The idea is to use it to attract new members and to communicate updates and things (like contests) beyond the usual Internet spheres. In that sense, it would do exactly what a business endeavors to do, only the product being offered doesn't cost money. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the FB groups are more about providing a place for community interaction, which we already have covered with the Forum?

 

[Trish]

The idea is to use it to attract new members and to communicate updates and things (like contests) beyond the usual Internet spheres. In that sense, it would do exactly what a business endeavors to do, only the product being offered doesn't cost money. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the FB groups are more about providing a place for community interaction, which we already have covered with the Forum?

Yep, I totally get it and I don't disagree. Some admin functions are the same, you can require people to join or follow the page before they can post to it (I would, less spam), or make it so no one can post at all other than you and only follow for updates about the site or click links that lead them here (probably the best for what you want since fb users will be a "community" wherever you let them and then you're going to spend a shit ton of time managing their comments, their self-promo links, etc.) Anyway, there is some overlap that I can help with if needed was really my point.

 

[Madman Starryteller]

Just to note, I looked up our sister forum, and they have a Facebook page. Which has 1400 followers. And it seems to be several years old. So I wouldn't expect any crazy numbers unless we get lucky somehow.

Other than that, this sounds good! I suppose you have already thought on what kind of content you would share on the Facebook page to get people to the forum. Maybe add non-controversial popular forum topics to that list of content?

 

[Homer Potvin]

Some admin functions are the same, you can require people to join or follow the page before they can post to it (I would, less spam)

Oooh, good one. I wouldn't have thought about that. Thanks!

Just to note, I looked up our sister forum, and they have a Facebook page. Which has 1400 followers. And it seems to be several years old. So I wouldn't expect any crazy numbers unless we get lucky somehow.

Other than that, this sounds good! I suppose you have already thought on what kind of content you would share on the Facebook page to get people to the forum. Maybe add non-controversial popular forum topics to that list of content?

Not expecting crazy numbers, no. Any numbers would be good. And other ways to engage the members we have already. Like I was mentioning in another thread, we're very top-heavy. We get our 70ish members a day, but those 70 are being drawn by less than a 2X pool, as far as I can tell. What that means is we don't have a lot of members in the absolute sense, but we have a lot of loyal, frequent flyer members. If we able to draw even 10 more preexisting members a day by reminding them we exist via a FB alert (assuming they're following us), we'd be styling.

Either way, it's free and relatively easy to manage, so stone the crows.

It's been awhile since I tracked it, but .com had around 100 daily members when I was checking religiously. And they're drawing from a much larger pool obviously, but like the OG, the lion's share of their members are inactive. More than half of our current members haven't logged in over a month. I have to do some more digging but our median number for posts is probably somewhere in the 80th percentile. If not higher.

 

[Trish]

Just to note, I looked up our sister forum, and they have a Facebook page. Which has 1400 followers. And it seems to be several years old. So I wouldn't expect any crazy numbers unless we get lucky somehow.

Other than that, this sounds good! I suppose you have already thought on what kind of content you would share on the Facebook page to get people to the forum. Maybe add non-controversial popular forum topics to that list of content?

Exactly. Then look up writing forum and select groups - way more followers (and activity). Honestly, if I wanted to drive people here, I'd spend time in reddit subs like r/writing r/pubtips etc. and look for threads where people are actively looking for communities, then post in those (making certain you aren't breaking any self-promotion rules on the sub). Reddit is probably the most active place for writers... r/writing (480k visitors and 10.6k contributions per week) r/creativewriting 3.4k visitors, r/writingprompts 18.8k members and 75.1k promptians.... reddit is the place you want to find strategic places to drop links (if allowed).

 

[Trish]

Also - just a heads up since I was just looking around on some old "writing forum community rec?" type threads on reddit and... the old site has a fair amount of um... bad press. Not sure how exactly we'd go about changing that, but it is something you should know.

 

[big soft moose]

We definitely don’t want a group, that’d just canabslise forum activity. We want people to come here to discuss writing not create yet another place to do it on Facebook