How can we increase Forum Participation

[AJ Konlucko]

I agree with a "Mature" tag, perhaps also alongside "Kids", maybe a couple of others.

Can you list the others you would like and we can consider them and how they will work

[AJ Konlucko]

How does this sound:
[FICTION]
[NON-FICTION]
[Mature]
[Children's]

Do we also want to add about the level of feedback we want?

[AJ Konlucko]

If it were me I'd put any requests in an introductory paragraph rather than a tag.

Otherwise, capitalising the tag text makes it more like a tag:

[FICTION]
[NON-FICTION]
[MATURE]
[CHILDRENS]

Yeah, I don't know why I didn't put them all in capitals....

[AJ Konlucko]

Over the past few weeks I have been searching for and joining a number of writing related Facebook groups. One thing I have noticed with them is the level of posting of peoples own work is really low, most of it is sharing pictures and information related to writing. I guess we need to be mindful of not going too far down that path and keeping this forum about our own personal writing experiences, not just a bunch of links to other sites.

[AJ Konlucko]

One group I have found on Facebook are just using that page as a way to drive traffic to their blog, not a bad idea for some cross marketing

[b20f08]

Try more competitions to attract members firstly. After that, I've no idea. I frequent one particular hobby forum and you can see it's maintaining its numbers, attracting new members regularly. But the vibe on that forum (been there since 2009) is that it's dying. A lot of people move on. Maybe it's the format, the lack of real-life face-to-face interaction (ie, live chat) that puts people off these days. I have no clues as I'm struggling to attract new members to our club sub-forum page. It's starting to resemble a personal blogsite with the amount of frequent posting I do there.

You're also going to compete with blogsites which I am finding is a much more friendly environment for attracting adherents (or followers to use the term). Everyone has greater freedom to air their "own voice" too via blogs and whatever is out there, that you can't find with a forum because it's basically a one-person entity, unlike a forum which is a group activity. So I've discovered.

I avoid fb as much as I can these days because there's little control over what content you receive from their end, something that forums fortunately doesn't openly do (unless you're a moderator/admin of course). But if chasing the herd is your thing, maybe AWF needs a fb presence; our gaming club does it. Everyone's doing it. But again the control issue is what frightens me the most with fb.

[AJ Konlucko]

Thank you for your well thought out post.

maybe AWF needs a fb presence; .

We do have a Facebook page which is used to direct traffic here. We seem to have members join and either never post or only post a few times before not coming back, I think this is common to most / all forums.

[AJ Konlucko]

Facebook has a lot going for it, but I still like a proper forum.

[b20f08]

Facebook has a lot going for it, but I still like a proper forum.

Agreed. fb is very much like those people who love extreme sports, okay for a thrill until the next one comes along. Forums are like walking in a forest with someone you know, chatting and sharing enjoyment in your company and surroundings.

[AJ Konlucko]

Facebook has a lot going for it, but I still like a proper forum.

Agreed. fb is very much like those people who love extreme sports, okay for a thrill until the next one comes along. Forums are like walking in a forest with someone you know, chatting and sharing enjoyment in your company and surroundings.

Such a good way of putting it