Getting members to come even with places like FACEBOOK existing... lol

How have you all found as far as ways to keep people interested in communities that are not FACEBOOK?   Any ideas?    I've got lurkers and a small handful of members ... I run a board on entertainment forms and I just can't seem to get people to discuss things... but these same people are talking it up on FACEBOOK every day...

  • in my opinion, music, movies, gaming, and sports have big enough niches all by themselves to devote a prosperous site to. narrowing your focus to just one of them couldnt hurt. but be sure to make a business plan. you can get some great business help from retired successful executives at the S.C.O.R.E. website, and they probably have a chapter in or close to your local community...but the first thing they will tell you is to make a business plan. if you have never made on before, you can see samples at the SBA site, and i recommend Streetwise's business planning book. it kind of has a "mad libs" approach to it so that you dont have to spend so much time worrying about the verbiage and just fill in the blanks with your pertinent information :) sounds like you are off to a great start tho! keep pushing forward!

  • btw, I very much liked what creator of Zynga once said. Someone asked him wether he is happy with his path to success. He answered that if he had to start from beginning, he would rather quickly create a lot of simple websites and stick with the one that would work. I believe this is a very good strategy, which is also very in line with philosophy of Elgg's architecture (make development simple and quick - and thus cheap).

    On the other hand, I think knowledge is important. Three years ago I had an idea to create a website which had to work like kickstarter. I didn't go with this idea as I judged I didn't have enought business experience. Right now, after kickstarter got successfull (and before kickstarter, there was fundable), I still didn't change my mind. My "kickstarter" business probably wouldn't be such a success, even if I created better website than kickstarter. It's important to be prepared, idea will come in time - they always do, it's the simpliest part :)

    I think that when you start coding, you should already have full knowledge to your path to success and path to failure. What will you do when you gain hundrets thousands of users in a single month? What if you won't be so successfull? (maybe reuse your idea and code for another website). You should get knowledge about everything - or have in reserve someone who can give you knowledget when it's needed - but start coding only when your idea is complete. If your first idea fails, quickly move to another one. Anticipate for two or three failures and with your fourth project you will likely have enought experience to make it work.

    Development work costs. Thinking doesn't :)

  • I have an elgg site with narrow focus: Forex trading and speculative opportunities.

    It is quite small (220 users) but we are a little community. So as it exists for 6 months now I think I have just a little experience I can share.

    First elgg is great. Elgg is helping me to focus on the content creating and development, where the real job is.

    For programming, well I think that this is the job for coders, nobody can know everything.

    To create a site is one thing, to develop a community is totally different thing.

    A friend of mine who is a succesfull forum owner told me.

    1. You need to gather a community of 6-8 people who are active. After an year you would see the results.

    2. If you do not write for a week your little community will be gone.

    3. You need to make a SEO optimization: think mainly link building and content creating

    My opinion for facebook is strongly positive. I think that we are in multinetwork world, elgg does notreplace facebook it complements it. A world of multiple nested social networsk (that is why facebook sharing and facebook comments are critical for me).

    As for me on the contrary fb is great, because it is a place where you can popularize the elgg site and get members. For example you cannot develop real projects on fb, with file sharing etc, that is what my elgg site does. 

    So I am showing with a link on fb what is offered for free, but this requires registration and the people come, register and start to ask questions etc.

     

Feedback and Planning

Feedback and Planning

Discussions about the past, present, and future of Elgg and this community site.