Do you sometimes wish the boards were more active?

[john]

Hey gang

 

It’s something I’ve seen said from time to time by old members and new. “If only the boards were more active.” Here’s the thing, all of us can help make this happen. Each one of us can have a positive impact on our community, every day, every time we interact or think about interacting.

 

Activity Breeds Activity

 

If you post, others will post. True, not every time you post will you be flooded by replies… but it’s a bit like building up a head of steam. There is a lag while momentum builds.

 

If you like our community and you would like to see it be more active and have more people interacting with your post, please take the initiative by engaging with other members and encouraging conversation.

 

If you post a topic, try to reply to everyone who replies, or at least as many as you can. This is true when you are promoting your music too. When fans take a moment to comment on your song, reply. Just by talking to them it shows you appreciate the efforts they have gone to. The same is true on forums with topics.

 

The same is true about posting replies to other member’s topics, other members posts. The more you chat, the more you take interest in what others are doing, the more they will take interest in what you are doing.

 

The same is true of members not involved in the conversation. When they see you are the kind of person who takes an interest in others, the kind who replies to messages, they are far more likely to start interacting with your topics and posts and doing things you ask of them, like playing a song.

 

The same is true of guests. If they see an active board they might join and participate. If they see you being active they can start following what you say. They start clicking on your links etc.

 

Activity Breeds Activity

 

Cheers

 

John

[Shipreck]

So true I have been trying to make a point to contribute at least once a week

[GregB]

I'd probably do more, and more often, but I hate the thought of seeing my face listed (as the most recent commenter) next to EVERY Board!  😳   As it is, I'm STILL listed on a few from a few months back.

[GregB]

I've been visiting Songstuff on-and-off for 5 years, and the most common themes/gripes I see are along these lines:

• how do I get heard 
• how do I get more listens
• how do I make contacts in the industry
• how should I market myself

To my surprise, rather than can get crushed by the rush, I've been buried by tumbleweeds in response to the OPPORTUNITY I posted.   And it's still the ONLY entry on the "Opportunities" Board.

https://forums.songstuff.com/topic/59445-an-opportunity-for-songstuff members/#comment-377926

 

Then again, I remember when I was developing my first home-produced album back in 2014, I attended a lot of industry networking events.  90% of attendees identified themselves as Singer/Songwriters, yet none could offer me links to their released works.  

 

Anyway, I'll plug away and do my own thing if I have to, and today I've released the 4th episode after finally recovering from a throat-infection (the scourge of any aspiring podcaster) 😀 

 

It's definitely not great, but it's something.    It offers YOU exposure for free ... IF you have a good story that YOU are willing to tell, and YOU can illustrate it with audio for which YOU have the Rights. 

The APPLICATION LINK is in the posting.

 

Cheers,

Greg

[john]

On 7/6/2024 at 8:55 AM, GregB said:

I'd probably do more, and more often, but I hate the thought of seeing my face listed (as the most recent commenter) next to EVERY Board!  😳   As it is, I'm STILL listed on a few from a few months back.

 

These are the voyages of the Songstuff Music Community. Our continuing mission: to explore strange new music topics; to seek out new posts and new comments(Especially Greg’s); to reply and like; to boldly go where no one has gone before!

[GregB]

I've just logged in to find EIGHTY (80) people are online ... but only SIX (6) are MEMBERS
i.e. 74 are anonymous visitors

 

Who are these shy people who don't want to be known, or post, or respond to posts?  (Obviously they can't tell us, because they can't post!).

 

Has anyone joined recently after being a long-time Vistor? If so ...

• why DIDN'T you become a Member earlier?, and
• has becoming a Member met your expectations?
• how many posts, replies, reactions have you done?

Edited July 14 by GregB

[VoiceEx]

On 7/6/2024 at 10:55 AM, GregB said:

I'd probably do more, and more often, but I hate the thought of seeing my face listed (as the most recent commenter) next to EVERY Board!  😳   As it is, I'm STILL listed on a few from a few months back.

 

I have a face that's "meant for radio", hence the umbrella 😅👍

[john]

On 7/7/2024 at 8:08 AM, GregB said:

I've been visiting Songstuff on-and-off for 5 years, and the most common themes/gripes I see are along these lines:

• how do I get heard 
• how do I get more listens
• how do I make contacts in the industry
• how should I market myself

To my surprise, rather than can get crushed by the rush, I've been buried by tumbleweeds in response to the OPPORTUNITY I posted.   And it's still the ONLY entry on the "Opportunities" Board.

https://forums.songstuff.com/topic/59445-an-opportunity-for-songstuff members/#comment-377926

 

Then again, I remember when I was developing my first home-produced album back in 2014, I attended a lot of industry networking events.  90% of attendees identified themselves as Singer/Songwriters, yet none could offer me links to their released works.  

 

Anyway, I'll plug away and do my own thing if I have to, and today I've released the 4th episode after finally recovering from a throat-infection (the scourge of any aspiring podcaster) 😀 

 

It's definitely not great, but it's something.    It offers YOU exposure for free ... IF you have a good story that YOU are willing to tell, and YOU can illustrate it with audio for which YOU have the Rights. 

The APPLICATION LINK is in the posting.

 

Cheers,

Greg

 

And it’s a good opportunity. I’ll be helping promote your series. After all, the bigger it becomes the more it helps me, and helps Songstuff. Why wouldn’t I want to avail myself of the opportunity and want to help support it?

 

Mad i tell you!

[john]

On 8/4/2024 at 6:57 PM, Dan Tyler said:

The problem as i see it as a long time internet forum user is ease of use and what you offer.

your forum is behind a main page and doesn't instantly stand out so many might not join just browse then leave when they see its not as active as others.

 

setting up a forum is so easy these days there are so many too all geared towards the singer songwriter, most have core members who pretty much run them, and they have an international membership and they spam it like mad to build members.

 

the admin is more active in making content not just replying to it, your competing with some very big forums that have ppl who have had actual number 1 songs behind them, that of course brings in ppl who think they will have one too if they join, lol.

 

They partner with podcast creators/social media creators to get their forums out there, most offer more than just a forum too but to do this they have sponsors to pay for it, comps and so on.

 

all in all you have to be happy sometimes with what you have as you never going to beat ppl like Songtown or the NSAI forums.

 

Many thanks for replying with some detail and food for thought.

 

Funnily enough, once upon a time Songstuff used to be a pretty big forum for music makers and Songwriters. Songtown was started a couple of years after Songstuff. Back then musesmuse and Songstuff were among the biggest independent music forums out there. Songstuff had literally thousands of active members each day never mind each week serving 250,000 to 500,000 pages per month. We also had quite a few staff volunteers. This was at a time when internet activity was much more conservative.

 

NSAI is a different beast, with a large real-world physical presence. That said it is largely focused on Country derived songwriting and there is a whole world of songwriting out there beyond Country.

 

Times change. Originally our members were music makers of all sorts. Eventually, the active membership became dominated by country lyricists and that brought us into a losing battle with the likes of the NSAI. During this time my health was very poor, and so the site failed to adapt and develop. importantly, there wasn't enough to keep the music and music production aspect active and as those numbers drifted so did end opportunities for the lyricists.

 

We're not trying to compete with Songtown or NSAI. Both are heavily Nashville oriented. Not that we'll be anti-country or anything, it's just not our central focus. Your comments do absolutely highlight a number of our problems and some of the solutions we identified, and a few good considerations.

 

We've been re-building and re-working. Songstuff has been completely free for 24 years. But to really progress it needs something beyond my pocket and beyond donations. We'll be adding coaching, courses, and subscriptions aimed at providing long-term financial security for the community. With those will come a user community to add to our free community. Our products are aimed at artists, music producers, and songwriters (as the original site was). We already have a ton of content focused on music marketing and promotion, music production, and a good internet presence. We need to build on our strengths.

 

The community shrunk in part because we had to re-design and re-work the site. We removed a lot of old-old boards and topics and long-term in-active members and a small number of very disruptive members. We could spend time pruning more, but I think we're better focused on building now. It's taken years to change, but we've made so many changes. Now the community re-build is getting underway. It's the ideal time for community members to get involved because they can be more involved in defining what the site will be.

 

The community itself gets a lot of benefits as a part of this process. For a start, it should give an endpoint for lyricists and songwriters. Something to do after writing their songs. A clear path. Our podcast and video channel under it's re-design will be heavily artist and songwriter-focused, with features, interviews, showcases of member music, and more I hope. I hope our members will be involved in defining exactly what content is on our channel, podcasts and site articles, as we provide what is needed to move forward.

 

As we progress the site will be more than a community. It already is, to a degree, but it has a way to go. However we have done a lot of work behind the scenes to enable real change.

 

As I said, we don't intend to compete with the likes of NSAI or SongTown. Just like they don't do everything, nor do we. I would hope we would complement what such communities offer, while offering something valuable and distinct of our own. What we decide to build now is part of that.

 

Thanks again for your input... much appreciated. I hope to hear more as we go!

 

[GregB]

On 8/5/2024 at 4:03 AM, Dan Tyler said:

your asking ppl to send in their own work that you can then show on your podcast channel, why wouldn't they just put the same thing on tiktok or instagram of facebook.

 

Hi Dan.  No ... that is NOT my intent.  Have you listened to it?

UNLIKE other podcasts, I'm not critiquing or 'reacting'.  I'm not a playlist creator.  I'm not foucsing on hardware/software products used.  And I'm not doing a vanilla marketing interview full of forced positivity and then playing the track. 

 

INSTEAD, I'm asking people to tell the STORY BEHIND their project, using sample audio for illustration.  It's meant to be for other creators, giving a different perspective, and personal insights into one person's process/challenges/success/doubts etc..

 

UNFORTUNATELY, without people as yet willing to contribute, I'm resurrecting my own stuff for 'interesting stories' that are relevant to audio production.  I had expected a few takers from Songstuff as, for me, songwriting IS about telling stories.

 

Happy to explain further if this is of any interest.

 

Greg