Combating Social Networks?

Bob Hubbard · Posted: 12/29/2009, 12:34 am Post subject: Combating Social Networks?

I'm seeing more and more people moving away from forums to social sites like Facebook. I've been trying to develop new means to combat the member drain.

So far I've set up groups and fan pages for my communities on Facebook and Myspace, and have started using Twitter, along with several blogs and feeds to create a web of promotional content. It's brought in some new people and some new content, but it's slow and not as efficient as I'd like. So, what tactics and techniques are you using and how's your success rate?
_________________
Webmaster:
MartialTalk.com - Friendly Discussion about the Martial Arts
KenpoTalk.com - The Internet's #1 Kenpo Community
Dead Parrot Tavern - Pirates/Ren Faires /Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Anime/Gaming/Technical and more!

Patrick · Administrator

This is an interesting subject, Mr. Hubbard. Thanks for bringing it up.

To me, I just see it as a growing of social media and online community and just basically an offering of different flavors and functionality. Some people prefer forums, some people prefer other types of communities. This has always been the case, but now there is just more.

I think you're doing smart things. I think utilizing these tools and creating outposts, as Chris Brogan says, is a smart thing. Creating presences that feed people back to your main site. I saw a phpBB hack today that used Facebook Connect and created a phpBB member account and allowed people to associate their existing account on your site with their FB account. And an extension from that is publishing to their feed, etc.

Personally, I haven't done tons of this, beyond having Facebook fan pages and not really using them. But, it's something I'd like to look at it in the future. There is a lot of potential there I am missing out on.

I'd love to hear thoughts from others and how they are using these networks, as Mr. Hubbard asked.

Thanks,

Patrick
_________________
Patrick O'Keefe - CommunityAdmins.com Administrator
Author, Managing Online Forums - A Practical Guide to Online Community Management
Have a suggestion or a bit of feedback relating to CommunityAdmins.com? Please contact me!
User Guidelines