Growth Is Discord a good way to grow your forum community?

[Num7]

However though, one forum I know is still going well despite having a Discord (where people just have silly banter amongst each other there).

Interesting. Let's ask ourselves this: Would you rather have this silly banter on your forum?

That's a good question. Yes Discord, may mean less forum posts. But would these banter posts be quality posts? Probably not. So you're losing in quantity, but not in quality. Does that make sense?

 

[Cory]

I only have three channels on my Discord server: General, Support, and New Resources. New Resources is the primary use I have a Discord server for so people can be notified when a new resource is released. The General channel is there to talk about whatever, but most people ask coding-related questions. I have a support forum on my board for support and the Support channel on my Discord server is for people who seek a quicker means of support.

Whether a Discord server is right for your forum or not all depends on its niche. If your forum starts to migrate entirely onto the server, it may as well be your forum. If your forum can benefit from a Discord server, such as my reasoning for having a New Resources channel for live notifications, then it may be well to put it to use for your forum. I try to think of "general" channels like a chit-chat thread you would post on your forum where it is for more insignificant comments than quality conversations.

 

[Nomad]

I don't see how Discord can help your forum grow except using it for staff related discussions. If anyone is actually doing it, please teach me.

 

[frm]

A prime example of how you can kill a GREAT domain that probably has a lot of type-ins and user engagement on a forum by adding Discord can be WTF.com. They used to also have a good way to monetize the forum by allowing you to purchase GMail-backed @wtf.com email addresses.

Side note: I use my domain @ROFLMAO.com for email.

 

[Bryn]

Yes Discord, may mean less forum posts. But would these banter posts be quality posts? Probably not. So you're losing in quantity, but not in quality. Does that make sense?

So it's a double-edged sword then... well, okay.

 

[Cedric]

Interesting. Let's ask ourselves this: Would you rather have this silly banter on your forum?

That's a good question. Yes Discord, may mean less forum posts. But would these banter posts be quality posts? Probably not. So you're losing in quantity, but not in quality. Does that make sense?

While that may be a good point, I’m a big fan of offtopic posts. Which you could class silly banter under.

Off topic posts usually make a community stronger, and let that bonding be an important factor since the strength of a community creates or breaks a community.

 

[ken_gitahi]

One word: cannibalization.

I have seen this also happen with other social media channels and blogs. One starts a blog and then posts a summary of each post on social media. People read the summary there and engage with the social media posts, but very few end up on the website.

Remember, we are living in an era of skimming, so if people can "skim" your main content on social media or elsewhere, they will not visit your site. If they can engage elsewhere, they are less likely to engage on your website or forum.

 

[frm]

If they can engage elsewhere, they are less likely to engage on your website or forum.

I learned this after about my 50th social media post. The post gave too much information where you didn't even need to visit the site.

I changed the posting approach and clicks went from 10s to 100s (with just shy of 10000 followers as I did advertising to gain them quicker than the site grew—easy with a geo-forum to know my target audience and get maximum followers for the least money).

Not many joined, but it did increase my AdSense revenue.

 

[Arantor]

We've been using Discord for chat, for 1:1 discussions that ultimately turn into content, and in the shared space that all members hang out in, we have notifications from the site to Discord which allows for encouraging people to write more.

(It's a small, niche community. This is expected and normal.)

 

[Wise Owl]

Personally, I don't like discord servers and I am a member of none. All that communication goes up endlessly and you would need to scroll and scroll to find what you need.. I understand more people enjoy discord but the niche of my forum doesn't require to have a discord channel.