Do you have a Facebook or Google+ fan page for your forum?

Do you have a facebook or google+ fan page dedicated to your forum and if so are you active on it do you get a lot of interaction with it? I have my main facebook page for my business that I’ve shared post from this forum but I’ve found when I’ve made pages that are specific for the forum, I just don’t have time to update them like I should. I do have a google+ page for this forum because I believe it helps your google ranking and I know for a fact that it’ll show up in search results with your logo.



Just wanted to see your thoughts, I’ve considered making one for Admin Talk but I’d hate to just not have time to update it. I guess that brings another question, if you do have a successful fan page then do you have a team of members that have admin access and help update it?

 

It costs a lot of time to interact with people on those sites to get them interested enough. You can update them with RSS feeds and sites/plugins that post them to the pages.

 

I have to agree with Jura. It takes way too much time and effort to do a fan page. Unless you set them up to automatically post, it will consume a lot of your time. Then you have to get additional admins to manage pages. I wouldn't use that option. I'd rather work my way with SEO.

 

I don't really and never really have setup pages for my forum i did for my other gaming forum which got 1 like on facebook so i have never tried again but maybe ill try with my upcoming gaming site but i'm not to sure what i can do to get more popular.

 

I do have a Facebook page for my site, but I haven't done too much with it. Same with Twitter to be honest, since I keep getting sidetracked by various things.

 

Awesome idea about the Google+ page. I never knew that's how the logo got linked up for certain sites!

I personally have had a lot of success with Facebook. We started our page in November 2012 - in less than a year, we've almost reached 5,000 "Likes" - and each fan is relevant to our site's content (no paid throwaway accounts). In the month of July, we had 12,221 unique visitors referred from Facebook.

FB also has the viral effect, so sometimes you share popular stuff, and suddenly your forum gets a ton of traffic (and the page gets a lot of Likes).

Each post reaches on average 6,000 people, some more / some less. Our best post reached 98,000! I definitely recommend it, but it does take time & energy to keep it active and drive content.

 

The thing is, you can't really control how or when your Google+ page will show up for searches. All you can do is keep posting updates to it, getting followers. and hoping for the best.

Also, remember, that nice little box is an advertisement for Google's service, not your forums. If they click or interact with it at all, it takes them to Google, not your forum.

In other words, it's just a distraction from that sweet sweet #1 ranking you worked so hard to get.

 

Not sure what you're talking about here, do you mean the google plus page?
If you click it then you'll end up on our google plus fan page.

 

I do have both, though the Google+ page does get neglected at the moment. The future I see for Google+ is to post relevant article into appropriate groups. I seem to get a lot of traffic from those sorts of posts rather than just posting to my own page only.

 

Yes. I'm saying its an ad that takes them to your Google+ page... not your forum. And its sitting right next to a link that does take them to your forum.

i.e. its a distraction from the link that actually takes them where you want them to be.

 

I don't mind it
Also if you clicked the vbseo link there on the right, it'll take you to the forum thread.

 

That's why you have to have a teaser or something to get them to click the link!

 

I've got a 30,000 member forum with approaching 8000 Likes on the FB page. I post something about 5 days a week.

 

I have a FB, twitter and G+. I hardly ever check the G+. FB will automatically post to twitter so I use that sometimes.

 

I hear you. Sounds good.

I've got (I think) a better proposal though. What if someone who searched your forum name in Google clicked the link and actually went to your forum -- where you don't have to then try to entice them to come to your forum with a teaser.

That is, instead of handing them off to Google and helping Google promote their cool new Google+ social network. Coincidentally... it's also where Google can use teasers too. Like "Hi there... have you seen Google+ Communities?".

Let me try to explain it another way... You've all seen Google try over recent years to push brand searches. Google loves brands. They promote big brands to the top of the SERPs just because they are brands. They know a huge percentage of searches are for brands (know anybody who types www.domain.com into the Google search bar instead of the browser address bar? I sure do!) and they want to increase that percentage. Now that they've got more and more people searching for brands, let's put a huge ad right next to the SERPs with images and info. Draw people's attention, then have them come see more about your brand on their site.

Getting the picture?

 

Don't use facebook, but G+ i do on http://centminmod.com.

Using it basically as a public mailing list of sorts for Centmin Mod users http://centminmod.com/gpage for updates LOL

I find G+ better for technical type talk amongst followers than Facebook

For me, I don't see the G+ fan page link next to 'admin talk' search term on Google results ??

 

Currently have FB & G+ but neither get used regularly, really should do though

 

I tested this logged out and I don't see it either.
Maybe you have to have "liked" the google plus page and be logged in.

 

I created a Google+ page for my forum, but I haven't taken the time to figure it out yet. I do use a Facebook fan page though for promoting, and it works well.

 

I do have a Facebook page dedicated to my forum, it's helped a little bit on obtaining some new users and keeping users up to date if we have downtime or something, although that's pretty rare. We update with site changes and everything on the forum page but it's not very active, userwise.