It’s time.
Give it up.
Your heart was in the right place, but you didn’t do anything to support your effort.You thought that building the community was enough. You never hired anyone to manage it. You mistakenly believed that your brand was so amazing and beloved, that people would flock to your community to have all of these grand conversations.
It didn’t happen, and you still don’t know why, despite the fact that it was barely promoted, if at all. You didn’t engage.
You never posted interesting content.
The content you did post was never updated. Okay, you updated it twice. Sorry about that.
You deleted comments that made your company look bad, instead of seizing the opportunities to connect.
Just quit. You’re giving community a bad name. Besides, you’re too swamped anyway. But you knew that going in.
I started off with the intention of giving you five reasons to shut down your community, but ended up with more.
You get the point. Make a change or shut it down. I’m over it. And so is everyone else.
Stop faking it.
Now please, have a great day.
4 comments
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January 13, 2012 at 1:15 am
Lolly
Angela – I’ve followed your comments and read your books/articles for years. You are never boring!
Here are my top 5 reasons to drop forums:
1.) It contains the word “kardashian”
2.) Trolls generate more than 10% of the post/responses
3.) The forum has no “higher purpose” as a “glue” to hold it together
4.) Newcomers do not feel like they can join in
5.) The forum lacks the “Cheers” factor
PS. Best wishes to you and yours in 2012!
January 13, 2012 at 7:29 am
Angela Connor
Hey there LOLLY! Long time no chat. You and I certainly know a thing or two about trolls, now don’t we? And number 4 is so true! Love your top five. Thanks for sharing. I for one am glad I’m not caught up with the Kardashian hype! Let’s meet for lunch one day soon.
January 13, 2012 at 2:48 pm
TARIFA RAK
I agree with both of you but unfortunately, there is a lack of good (and also bad) community managers, nowadays. I started using Twitter on 19th May 2009 and, that time, Twitter wasn´t very popular in Spain. It has become as popular as Facebook on the last months (end 2011). Which means more than 2 years after I opened my account in Twitter.
Now is a MUST to have a Twitter account in Spain I see but most users only chat with friends as they were doing at Facebook. If we are the ones who really build social networks, I do not trust on the future of Twitter like before.
Actually, I am finding it more and more difficult to find nice twitter profiles to follow day after day at Twitter (I am interested in art and web design). I follow pofiles all around the world (I speak english, german, french, portuguese and spanish) but I assure you that two years ago it was easier to find something interesting for my purposes.
Thank you for being there.
TARIFA RAK
January 13, 2012 at 2:50 pm
TARIFA RAK
See how I found my starting date at TWITTER!
http://www.whendidyoujointwitter.com/
Great tool!
TARIFA RAK