We get a fair amount of visitors... Nothing spectacular, but not bad. And yet it's rare for one to register and even rarer still for one to post. When someone does join up and start posting, I try hard to encourage them but the fire always goes out and they move on. Frankly, I just don't know how to get this site going. I keep working on it, keep hoping people will get interested. But I feel like Sisyphus. Am I wasting my time? Am I the only one in the Coulee Region that has any interest in talking to other local people? Maybe I'm just holding onto my childhood dream of running a BBS while the world has passed me by. Is it all about global now? Sure, it's fun talking to people all over the world, but there's just something cool about talking to local folks. Or maybe it's just me. I'm begining to think it is.
Is anyone reading this? Does anyone care?
Michelle
It takes time. There are 43 guests online as I write this. Often when I visit, there is a high number of guests. What other area websites have you promoted this site on?
That's the thing. We're getting about 3K visitors a month. Now, granted, a lot of those are going to be bots, but there's quite a few real people in there, too. And I just don't know how to convert people from visitors to members. I didn't want to make just a static site where people come and go and never interact. My whole goal in this was to make a place where local folks could talk and get to know each other. But it's just seeming more and more like an unattainable goal.
I haven't had a lot of luck getting links on other sites. We get a lot of people from the search engines, though, which is why I keep trying to add content like the area information. I've also ordered some "business cards" for the site that I'll hand out to people. They should be coming in about a week. I need to start focusing on "real world" advertising with flyers and such. I keep suffering from "not good enough syndrome, though"
I keep thinking I'll make up some flyers when I get X done on the site. I think I just need to convince myself that it's usable as it is, even if it's not done, and just do it already. 
Whew... Hopefully I'm not scaring people away wearing all my fears on the outside. Tell me, will you lurkers join if I stop whining about you not joining?
Michelle
Say, how's the twitter integration coming along?
No luck. I could never get it to work. I can't even find where you make them now... Did they pull them?
Michelle
I am just popping by, because I am interested in the advanced forum at Drupal. I live in Denmark, so I am not local
/grn
grn: Well, you're still welcome. I didn't mean to slight non local people. Anyone who wants to chat here is welcome to do so.
The point behind this rather whiney post (sorry... I was really having a bad day when I wrote it
) is that I'm wondering if this idea even makes sense. Are people actually interested in a forum who's only focus is localness? Am I fighting a losing battle because the basic idea is flawed? I find myself having trouble thinking of new things to post because there is no real subject here. Maybe I should forget the more general forums and really push the groups? Those have subjects, things to talk about.
So, this started out as a self pitying whine but let's turn it into something constructive. I could use feedback here. Is there anything I can do that will get you interested in posting here? New groups, new content? If you're just lurking, why? You don't have to sign up to post so all you need to do is break out of lurking long enough to type something quick.
Thanks,
Michelle
http://twitter.com/badges
Thanks! I scoured Google for that and had no luck. Ok, I still can't get the flash one to work. I'm going to give the HTML one a try. It's not as nice, but it seems to be working.
Michelle
... or maybe not. I'm a little slow this morning. Finally realized the reason the HTML one didn't look quite right is that it only included my tweets. Still can't get the flash one to work.
I think this is going to have to wait until I have time to code it myself.
Michelle
YES YES YES... PEOPLE ARE INTERESTED... well I AM!!! The one thing I have to say is that I just plain FORGET. I don't get an e-mail every time there is "movement" on the site, or I'd be here a lot more often. Is there anything I can do to change the setting to where I get notified more often?
Monika
Sounds like a brainstorming session on local community outreach is in order. Offline promotion usually works well.
Plus, a daily / weekly "come back and see the site and here's the new stuff" email is probably going to be needed, including turned on by default, in order for the "long tail" of users to remain engage. Then you walk them up the learning curve and get yourself some lieutenants.
Say...kind of sounds like someone elses story :P
Great site, Michelle, good luck engaging local...
Wow, I woke up today to see five posts in the tracker with new activity! I can't tell you how awesome that is to me. You folks have just made my day.
I know I tend to get a bit over dramatic when the visits/activity are down. I won't bore you with the psychological reasons behind that but will try to keep it under control in the future. When things are going good around here I'm horribly embarrassed by all the whiney posts. 
Need to try and keep a happy face on. 
I ran into a forum for people who run forums the other day and have been reading it whenever the kids give me a chance. There's lots of great ideas there and I'm hoping I can use them to really get things going here. One of the things they suggested was a newsletter like you said, Boris. I'll get simplenews set up on here and see how it goes. Not sure about turning it on by default unless I can make it so there's a checked box you can uncheck at registration. I know I hate getting emails from sites that I didn't ask for and don't want to be annoying people.
Roadangel - Thanks for coming back. I've been thinking about you lately and wondering if I should send you an email. You can subscribe to things on this site. If you look at the first post, it says "Subscribe". Click on that and it will open and there's a bunch of options. Given the low level of activity on this site, though, I'm going to look into setting it up so you can get notified when anything gets posted rather than having to subscribe to each post / forum. TBH, I haven't really looked at that from the user's end much. I have an Opera shortcut set up to go to the "what's new" page so I can see everything at a glance and go there, um, well, way more than I want to admit to.
Boris - Thanks for stopping by. I know you don't live around here but feel free to join anyway if you want to chat.
Michelle
I definately don't think its lack of interest. I only just learned about this site the day I joined & made no hesitation in joining. I just had never heard of the site til now. Definately need more promo to get more people.
Yeah, advertising is a must. I got some business cards printed up and have been giving those out. Next step is to print up some flyers. I need to get a color printer, though. I'm still living in the dark ages with a black and white laser printer from 1997. LOL
Then I need to find where to put them... I'm going to start a new thread for that.
Michelle
You have done a great job by creating this site.. Issue of site growth in terms of number of registered users , I feel , is just a matter of time... I would like to suggest you to consider starting a forum like "my emotions diary " or something similar ..to share and track different kinds of emotions we experience in our daily life situations ....It would be really interesting to scan through our emotions track records at a later point of time ... I hope something like this will make people visit your site regularly..
Does this make any sense !
Another idea is Creating a forum for sharing the worst fears and worries we have about our future...,destiny..etc.. I hope these are the personal things that are close to our hearts.people might want to share them and would like to see the response of others..
Hope this helps..
Joe
Thanks for the encouragement. I know it takes time to build a forum but I had no clue what I was getting into when I started this two years ago so it gets overwhelming at times. The recent conversations have been wonderful and it's really exciting seeing people actually getting use out of the site.
Interesting forum ideas, but I think those are a bit too narrow in scope. I'm trying to avoid adding too many forums all at once. Better to have a few active ones than a bunch of inactive ones. You could always start threads on those topics, though, if you like.
I think I'd scare people off if I posted a diary about my emotions. LOL
Michelle
The other things i was a part of weren't local. I like what you made. Its nice that we already have something in common, we suffer the same weather, the same construction...
The other things i was a part of weren't local. I like what you made. Its nice that we already have something in common, we suffer the same weather, the same construction...
See, that's it for me. That local connection. Just being able to chat with someone and mention some restaurant or what's going on down highway 53 and have people know what I'm talking about. That gets lost in this global internet. I'm trying to bring a little bit of it back.
Michelle
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