What do you do when membership drops off?

What are some good groups on FB for such things? And do you also have a page/group on Facebook attached to your writing groups? I've not used this social media outlet for such, so I'm curious.

 

Yeah, I'm really curious about additional methods of advertising, myself. I've never heard of Facebook groups for something like this.

 

Advertise like a mother. There are a few go-to sites I have.. and my forum is on tumblr and twitter as well. We have followers on both so I'll blast those. Hitting up people looking for individual or rp requests on resource sites and sending them personalized messages to their pm boxes... talking in communities like this and on discord... rinse and repeat. There's no magic wand, unfortunately... it's all just...name recognition and keeping yourself top of mind.

 

Yeah, see, we don't mind smaller numbers of members, so long as the writing continues. But there are certain times of the year that it just drops off significantly. This is a hobby, so you can't be mean about it. Life happens. I'm slowly moving through directories and advertising boards right now, looking for both people looking for a good story to hop into and also posting the group's info out there. I'm not sure if there will be any interest, but I can always hope!

 

Hi there, am so sorry to see your members dwindling like that. But it's not the end though. Like most of us said, if you have something good to sell, be out and proud of it. Advertise the hell out of it. When they do enter your place, make sure their wasted time is worth the experience! That's what I've been trying to do, and hopefully my members feel the same as I do. And having social media platform helps great deal, it's very hard to connect from site/forum alone because of the platform nature, and once you connect, you start to relate to your players as human more than just the character. It's a beautiful experience.

Wishing you the best man!

 

Honestly I don't bother worrying about it. If I even have one good RP partner I'm satisfied. The thing is, I used to be an administrator on a game where we also had about five solid core writers but my co-admin was obsessed with activity and convinced at all times that people were abandoning us. Don't let it get to you, just write with the people you have and join a couple of dedicated RP directories and stay active there. I also have a queue system on Tumblr that I use to post ads in their RPC.

 

My initial reply turned into a rant, the 2nd version was whiney. So, I opted for not posting then and took a breath. I'm just going to say that I'm tried. I'm not ready to give up on my site, I'm just tried of the battle. These sites are supposed to be fun. All of the BS, the rock vs. hard place issues I've been dealing with aren't worth it. So, I stepped back to clear my head.

My web-design skills are basic, at best.

My advertising abilities are non-existent.

My Social Media Skills … Yeah, not going there.

I admit that I need help with my site- sadly, there's no budget to pay anyone for their skills and talents. These types of RPG sites are typically free to join and use. At least I've never known of one that charges for membership. So, there's no budget to pay it would have to be volunteers.

What I have decided is to focus on the writing. Until something changes, this is the one thing I can do, even if it's just me posting. Even if it's not my best writing, what I post are usually 1st drafts, it's still posting.

Some people may laugh and mock me- a single writer RP site. The key word is 'writer'. I am a writer with aspirations of publication. Every post I make to my site is an exercise in my talents of writing. Yes my posts are flawed, they're not supposed to be perfect. I can guarantee 2 things about my posts- 1. I've run them through spell check. 2. If you enjoy my RP / fan-fic works then you will like my published works.

 

Facebook has been an epic fail for me. I have both a page and a members only group. While there are constant 'likes' clicked, in over a year's time there have been zero new members garnered from this.

 

I never had much luck with facebook myself. Getting sites off the ground from a really small user base can be really hard. Some of it comes down to luck and just catching a lucky break too. If your site is good, and you seed it in enough places... My own site kicked off due to an entire group of people mass leaving their old site, and they stumbled on an advertisement for mine. Was all it took to get it that leg up.

Your biggest problem I imagine is that without an existing player-base, generic advertising isn't going to get you bites. They'll join, see no activity and leave. You may have more luck advertising a specific RP on your site in high traffic RP advertising channels. By default, people joining the roleplay will join your site rather than looking and seeing an empty site and leaving again.

 

It's always hard to keep people's interest, there are so many options now a days. So many games out there. The only thing I do when things get a little stale is change up the skin, add new plot events, and advertise a LOT. It's all you can do really. At the end of the day, people will stay or they will go.

 

So yeah. Your website is... Wow. Wow yeah that needs some kind of update man. This is why I don't like PHPBB, you need to know so much about the software to use it efficiently, but at the same time all the softwares that make it easy are... Well... Over all trash or super expensive.

If you can afford like, 200 dollars to switch that over to Xenforo and buy a theme, I think you would be solid in the looks department. You'd have Xenforo, you'd never have to update it cause as long as the Xenforo you have installed is updated, you'd have a sexy theme that could be customized in some easy ways, you'd be golden.

Also, where's the chatroom? Discord? Mibbit? Skype? MSN? AOL?! Personally I haven't been without an IRC chat since I was... 12? 10? Young people kinda steer the boat when it comes to how communities communicate, and right now that boat is floating through discord land, so getting a discord and being active on it, is not a terrible idea. It allows for connections to be made much faster than forum posting.

Make connections. Network with people. Right now I am looking for people who are good at CSS and understand website code. BEing able to pay them is diddly shit if they aren't interested in the project in the first place. Sometimes you get lucky and the person is willing to do it for non-monetary compensation. Or even pro bono. You never know unless you start talking to people. Remember, never be so set on what you want, that you wouldn't take something better.

 

Start spamming those ads and wrangle some affiliates. TopSites has helped a little too, just make sure your remaining members are voting daily.

 

Im nervous that this will be hard for me to maintain, but I am trying to relaunch my rp with a lot of momentum.

 

I had lost this bunch of posts! So, I'm going to copy and paste my reply from the other forum here -

I've been trying to check out and join directories and advertising sites, but I've not got a lot of return. I'm not sure people are even taking a look. I feel like, maybe I should toss a gimmick or something...lol. We had a toxic/ manipulative player recently that wrapped her characters into other peoples' storylines to the point that we essentially have lost 3 players when we had to ban the one. I hate it when this happens. I had hoped people like this didn't still swim in our waters. However, now I'm trying to not only fill roles but get us some folks that like to write... it's just not happening.

I run a groups.io Marvel RPG/Writing Group because we had come from Yahoo. Our current folks wanted something simple similar to what they were accustomed to. Unfortunately, most of the advertising groups I found in the post about a directory are either now defunct or are jcink only. Groups.io are very limited. I'm about to update my directory submissions, but otherwise, I'm not sure where to go with this. And that's sad considering I've run RPGs and Writing Groups since the late '90s.

THIS THREAD: BUILDING A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF RPG ADVERTISING WEBSITES - is a great resource. And I hope to expand upon it. Like I said above, though... several are very limited in what you can advertise and some are simply no longer there...

 

I've found that member slumps come when I get complacent with where I advertise. A lot of times when I find new outlets to promote in, I find people that didn't even know communities like these existed. It's crazy that despite the internet, things are still so isolated. So mostly it's just putting in the leg work to find a new community to saturate with ads. Also patience, as even going hard on advertising isn't a guarantee. But passion for your site combined with said advertising has done the trick for me.

 

I think it might become an issue for my own old-fashioned, text-based RP. Thing is, what do you do when you and your very few partners aren't coders? It seem we're caught in a snowballing effect: we need more members to have more chances to have some who are good at coding, but we won't get more members without coded sites...

 

I try to focus on supporting a small, but solid core of members instead of aiming for a large sprawling member-base. Establishing good communication helps, but encouraging activity can sometimes be a challenge.

Advertising can help to bring in new members. I have been trying to be more targeted and selective on my advertising lately than blitzing.

Ultimately, if you and your members are having fun, then how large your member base is doesn't really matter?

 

As someone who has had experience with this, I think all you can do is persevere. Some sites just won't ever gain too many members (either due to oversaturation, the ebb and flow of the interest of the rpc, real life, or other factors) but if a site is active and you enjoy playing on it, you should keep playing on it. First and foremost, the site should be a place you want to be, not a place that feels like a chore; some of the best sites I've been on have been small with people coming and going as the wants of the community change.