Are forums losing out to social networks?

[clive]

Hi all,

i was just wondering what other forum owners think about the increase in facebook/twitter users in the last few years and how that has affected your forum...

I have run my forum www.iberianatureforum now since 2009 and sometimes it feels like "flogging a dead horse"... I also use facebook but still rely on good solid conversation in a forum... New topics have dropped alarmingly and people are logging in less...

I actually think that people will start coming back when facebook starts charging for gallery and other bells and whistles...

Any thoughts?

[SMFHacks]

I have noticed it myself. Facebook/and social media isn't good for long term conversation and can't be searched well.
Overall I think a forum is a better way to have a group.

[tank_fv101]

My forum is specialist for a hobby, but in the last few years some facebook groups have started and we've definitely lost out on some posts and members.

Some members use my forum and the FB groups to write some posts, whilst some forum members refuse to use FB, and some FB users only post on the FB groups because it's "quicker".  One thing that they don't really think about is that posts on FB are quickly 'lost' once they are off of the screen, so you can't use them for reference like you can on the forum.

Still, FB is much better than the Yahoo Groups that are still going!

[SMFHacks]

I also notice seems some people are going mobile only even though I don't care for the mobile experience on phones and prefer a desktop myself.

[clive]

My forum is also niche iberianatureforum.com and it looks ok on a tablet but is pretty much unusable on a smaller mobile (for me anyway... I like a keyboard)...

One thing I have noticed... the forum admin need to stay on top of everything including newsletters and answering posts etc... I dropped out of my forum for a year or so due to work pressure and didnt post much, just admin and keeping spammers away etc

Now i am back and people are posting more.... So the forum is me? I am forum....

By the way, my forum wouldn't look anywhere near as nice as it does without the excellent help from smfhacks.....

Best regards from Spain

[quiraskill]

Definitely. Many prefer social networks. Is much faster and 90% stay connected to social networks all day.