Doesn't seem to be much happening in the Lounge ...

[MikeRobinson]

Why is that?

 

Or am I missing something?  Is the liquor water cooler empty or something? 😀

[john]

I know. Weird.

 

Not to worry. It will soon busy up!  Even bars have quiet days and quiet times of days

 

[Gtar Pkr]

Seems to be slow everywhere... JPF just came back after 10 months off line and can't seem to get anything going either. I blame "Cancel Culture"

[john]

3 minutes ago, Gtar Pkr said:

Seems to be slow everywhere... JPF just came back after 10 months off line and can't seem to get anything going either. I blame "Cancel Culture"

 

I think people are just a bit tired, of pretty well everything.

 

That said... we do have some plans. Truth be told the staff have had plans for a while, but it takes time to put some plans in place. We are getting there!

 

We have plans to develop some site income to help support the community financially, so that it doesn't depend on the size (or lack of it) of my pocket, and is instead financially independent.

 

What has this to do with many parts of the internet being a bit quieter?

 

I'll explain briefly the essentials and try not to come across as an advert lol It's difficult considering the subject. Anyway...

 

To answer the question, well we might not be able to inspire the internet, but we can really try to brighten our little corner. To support the site we plan to launch a range of products covering singing, song writing, recording and production, music marketing and music career. We will be starting with courses on singing, music marketing and developing a music career as an independent artist.

 

Our activities around these should bring in much more people, and hopefully inspire several current members.

 

Our very first product will be advertising. Initially we will be offering ads to businesses at a heavily discounted rate, when compared to the average cost of ads on the internet, and members advertising their own music will get to get a rate that is 50% below that again. Indeed the lowest cost is less than 35 cents for 1000 ad impressions... which is just 10% of the average of $3.50 for 1000 ad impressions.

 

Ads will run on our community, more or less where we have ads just now. They will also run on www.songstuff.com, our newsletter and emails (yet again where we have ads just now), and with our better packages we throw in ads on SSUK and IMS sites, both of which are fan facing sites (ie, sites for music fans). That's very affordable ads. Cheap enough that I hope it attracts artists to Songstuff.

 

We have a whole bunch of engagement boosting activities planned... all of which we hope will improve our site and our social media portals by making the site much more relevant to active musicians, and encouraging towards interested musician.

 

It's not so much the products that will build activity, so much as our activities around our products. Staff have had some health issues for the last 4 weeks or so, but we are getting back into it... and that in itself will encourage activity on our boards and around the site. Newsletters will be restarting ( @Mahesh) and that will boost activity too.

 

My point is, if things were quiet and we didn't know why and we didn't know what to do about it, I might be a little concerned. Fortunately we know why it has become quieter, and we know exactly how to fix it :). It won't even take that long to bring about change.

 

One key thing on communities of any kind is activity. Activity breeds activity. If you want the forums to be more active, then being more active yourself will help. A little patiece is always key. The amount of times I see someone start something ( a club, a blog, a topic, even a youtube channel... in the world outside our boards  ), just expecting people to participate immediately... it doesn't work like that.

 

When you start something (club, topic, blog, channel etc) you need to:

1. be consistent
2. be active
3. promote it (here and elsewhere)
4. encourage engagement
5. be patient
6. be more patient

If you do all of these, it will get busy. If you get staff and other members on board it will help big time.

 

Site staff have been very busy... but it has almost entirely been behind the scenes, improving site infrastructure, product development preparing for promotion, adding tools, writing new articles in advance... and we are literally days away from launching ads, a few weeks away from launching courses. In preparation that also means we are at the point of spending much more time on building membership and engagement.

 

Anything you guys can do to help build activity on our community boards is greatly appreciated. In fact, look out for a new engagement initiative being launched along with the site ads

 

I'll shut up now lol I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

 

As ever, ideas are very welcome

 

Cheers

 

John