Why not a FB group yet?

General Discussion
6

As the original topic is closed I post here

I have some experience with taking social presence equal zero to a couple hundred followers in a few months. I have done this in past for another (paid) plugin and their groups are rocking meanwhile, not to speak of the traction it gets them

First steps to take this to next level are to give the group a “real” name, right now, it is the default number - this can be changed easily in the group settings
Also the group should be connected to CP FB page, to make it official

It is important to do this in the early stages, because this is like a domino game:
A user sees there’s no social presence, he/she won’t follow. The next user sees there are no many followers, Thus won’t follow, and so on

If we can tackle this now, the social presence grows as CP grows, and again like in domino, the next user will join because there is active community (Many people do NOT want to create new accounts yada yada, they want to go with their daily media channel, which for many is FB)

I am willing to help with this - either as admin or whatnot, just let me know. I have also some resources (volunteers) that are willing to interact with eventual users, we do that already on above mentioned paid plugin (still, even if we do not profit anymore from it as meanwhile independent). So, please PM or reply here if we can help somehow with it.

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ClassicPress has an official PAGE.
The groups are not official or managed by ClassicPress organization. The group mentioned above was made by a community member, and there is a disclaimer stating that it is not owned not managed by ClassicPress officially.
It’s just a “personal group about ClassicPress”.
That being said, I think ClassicPress doesn’t need a group on fb, because an official page is already in place, and any interaction happens on the forum.

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8

Please allow me to jump into this discussion but I strongly disagree with this statement that CP doesn’t need a group. I really believe it does!
Visibility so far has been extremely weak and a FB group could help a lot.
Most WP plugins and themes are running both: forums AND groups.

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9

Sorry!
I thought there as some agreement that it will be made official at some point, see Facebook Group - #9 by BlueSkyPhoenix

I probably got that wrong then.

I do however agree with @dsl25 that a group can help boost awareness and interaction and that CP definitely needs some boost.
Right now, for example all my clients I offer the switch are scared, even they do not like GB at all and want another solution, their sentiment is along the lines of:
Will CP stay? Is this even “working”? I can see empty DOC! I do not see many people using it or considering it!

That is the general sentiment, and this can be boosted off partially with social presence and more interaction, amongst other things, also because many people do exactly “base” their first impression on things like social presence and interaction.

It doesn’t need to become a support channel. It can be made clear that it is a “social” interaction platform for users who do not want to be forced to sign up to (one more) account like slack, or this forum here.

There may (will) be users willing to help other users over FB, I see this in all groups I am member of, despite those instances having dedicated forums as well.

More than anything else, it helps building backlinks, people “talk” about it, and this does trigger search engines to infer that content is worth linking to, and therefore also worth surfacing on a SERP etc etc.

All in all I don’t think a platform like CP can renounce to a full scale social presence. That includes (but is not limited to) FB groups. Pages are for following, Groups are for interaction. And that is what creates the big “talking pool” - the page alone just creates likes and perhaps a few shares.

However, not trying to force my opinion or experience here. Of course I accept if it won’t be done :wink:

Again offering my help, if required.

Cheers!

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cc @BlueSkyPhoenix :slight_smile:

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Those of you interested in a more active FB presence, please bring this up during the upcoming marketing meeting: Marketing Meeting: Thursday, May 13 at 3:00pm EDT

Thank you! This is super appreciated and usually makes the difference between an initiative being successful or not :slight_smile:

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@james - I would love to attend, I even already added the meeting to my calendar, that is where I recognised that it will be 2AM my time.

Are there plans to make 2 meetings (like one for eastern and one for western hemisphere?
I am aware that of now probably there are not enough people to make this effort, however it would probably be necessary in future, or move the meetings generally to an earlier EDT time, such as 9am, that is a “human” time around the world (see https://www.worldtimebuddy.com) :smiley:

I will try to join anyway…

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Usually we use doodle.com to schedule meetings, this is a good example of why.

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And I will add to this that social media platforms engage the traffic that a website has there… into these platforms whatever those platforms are.
And that happens because they are designed for this purpose. To keep their users there and take the traffic from wherever else is possible. So it is a huge mistake for those who run already a website to create groups on social media platforms.
I made once just out of curiosity a twitter account that I connected it with my website… Do you know how many people visited my website from this account? Just three. Would you like to know how many clicked from the link that I provided on my website to that twitter account? 500+ lol
When I realized what this thing was doing on my website I deleted immediately this account and I said that I will never gift my traffic to social media again.

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I don’t understand this concern.

The purpose is that people share and speak about the brand. Wether that happens on my website or my FB group is irrelevant, and surely better if it is in a place where tons of people who do not yet know about the brand (like Facebook) see their “friends” talk about or get invited by their “friends” to the brand, than in a place where all the people already know about the brand (like my website).

Having a huge traffic on a Doc or Forum is useless if the traffic is limited to the 50 people visiting it daily since 2 years.
Having 120 new people even just sharing a social posting within a few days has a bigger impact, without even driving a single click to the website. The brand is still “pushed”.

A website is not the tool that makes a brand famous. Social media are. This is at least what my experience tells me.
8 years of conservative “We don’t need social media” vs 2 months of “lets try social media” proved me right on a previous company I was involved with. The people who interacted, spoke about, and hence spread the word of that brand tripled within those 2 months.
Sales increased, and those happen to be on the website.

Since CP is not a sales page there is anyway very little purpose in driving people to the very website
What is crucial is that people who do not know about it, get to know it, download it (and again that can be done only on the website), and then use it. In other words, switch from XY to CP.

Just my opinion based on past experiences: Yes, you may get less traffic from social to private website, but that is not the point of this exercise to start with. There won’t be a prominent link to Facebook, rather, people on Facebook will find the group. And from there, they will either go to CP and download CP or have it already and hence interact on that group with other members. This strengthens the awareness about CP, which is practically non existent atm and creates trust in the platform. Those users will advocate for CP, and that will (hopefully) generate users. Those users will, one way or another, sooner or later, have to land on CP Site to get started. If we can catch even just one person on FB and make them use CP, or help them proceed using CP, it is worth it. None of the existing users of CP will switch to use FB as a CMS just because we have a FB group. This may be different in lets say a blogging website, that wants its traffic on site. CP just needs people using it, it doesn’t matter where they spend their time, as long they install and build websites with CP.

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I think the concern partly is that it may end up being abandoned with no activity, like Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicPress

But we should still give it a go. See how it turns out. Facebook has more users, so might be better than Reddit.

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I think the concern is that the team is spread very thin already, to have time to manage it officially and with an in-brand communication.
That means it has to be a community private initiative, that in case is managed the wrong way can harm the project.
I understand the importance of social media, but CP is not only an open source project, there are two structured non-profit behind it (one in the USA and the other if I am correct in Ireland).
This means communication must be managed seriously, and the forum is the right place to do so without delegating.
The unofficial group went dead because once the people involved started they maybe realized how much hard work it is to manage it. There wasn’t a clear objective behind it, no measurable goal, no plan.
It was just “hey, let’s make a group to see how it goes”. And nobody is managing it nor engaging.
Things like these can harm the project credibility.

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We discussed FB group during marketing meeting. @anon66243189 will run it. So we’ll see how it goes.

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I’m not much of a FB user, but, do think it’s a good idea to run an official group. For some people, if you don’t have these types of “supporting” accounts, the project may seem less legitimate. On the other hand, if those presences aren’t maintained, it could make the project look dead. So, I’m torn on it…

In terms of group involvement, I would join the group, or like the page – or whatever they do now – but, wouldn’t necessarily be an active participant.

Success (or failure) with groups is not predetermined – it depends a lot on the content, the management of the group, and the personalities involved. Millions of companies, entities, and outfits use groups with success.

This is a good point. We also need to figure out a way to attract experienced developers to the platform. At this point, James (and others) is/are carrying way too much.

The content of the “Get ClassicPress” page is overwhelming – too many sections, too much text, too many CTAs. It’s confusing. I would love to redesign this section for clarity.

I’m not sure what kind of work it would take – and don’t think we have the resources right now for it – but, having an option to “Click and try ClassicPress” which spins up a performance-tuned site that exists for, say, 3 hours, would be a good way to show potential users/switchers that “Yes, ClassicPress is exactly what you expect!” without requiring them devote time/effort to setting up a local installation.

That’s a valid concern…but, I agree, we will never know if we don’t try. And, since there’s someone willing to help with it, it makes good sense to give it a go.

I agree with this sentiment, generally. However, since @anon66243189 has only just become involved, and he’s offering to help with it, it wouldn’t necessarily spread the pre-existing team any further.

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It doesn’t matter how many speak about a brand but how many of all these people will use the brand. Facebook and social media have proved that they are all about empty words and vanity likes.
I personally have no interest at all to get the likes from unrelated with art people, that not only have no interest about the kind of art I’m making, but are also unwilling or unable to buy.
I don’t want to make posts for unrelated people because these kind people will never come back. Those who are interested about something can find their way towards the thing that interests them and as soon as they find something that really interests them, they stick with it.
I for instance didn’t find classic press from social media. I found it because I searched for a WP alternative and I found a post reply on a blog that mentioned classic press.
As soon as I clicked on CP website I decided to try it and not mess up with the WP classic editor plugin. Because I own a website and I was interested about an alternative cms.
It wasn’t that someone invited me to see a new cms, while we were talking about pop music, ( random example of unrelated subject) without even having in the first place a website, to click on the like button in order to satisfy the friend that invited me and never bother again.

What I have to say about my website is that it has TRUE traffic. The people that visit and revisit my website do so because they are interested about what I present there. I don’t present empty content in order to satisfy the requirements of the social media platform algorithm. When I have to say something I say it, whenever I like and with whatever way I want to say it and I’m not obliged to abide with anyone else’s rules.
And I don’t have either to deal with any malicious competitors that will click the dislike button in order to destroy the reputation of my brand name.

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in order to have a successful social media group you have to “feed” the algorithm. Otherwise you get lost in the millions of other groups.
I don’t know if you have heard that big companies employ other companies to do this job…to manage social media accounts.
That shows that the “sport” is demanding because it is designed to be so.
To create competition in order to stay afloat on top of the others by feeding the platform with content.
But when you make your company or brand name “content” the only ones that benefit from that are the Zuckeborgs and the Dorseyborgs…lol
Not you, that you spend your time and energy and effort to feed their platforms instead of focusing on how to improve your work.

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You have made it abundantly clear that you do not support a Facebook group, or any other social media. And that’s fine. However, there’s no need to continue arguing and reiterating your reasoning. Ultimately, those who will put in the effort will be those who make the decision.

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You didn’t pay attention to what I’ve said at some point here. You haven’t learn how to practice patience.
Wait until the Classic Editor plugin will stop being supported. And then you’ll see how many they are going to look for a decent alternative in total panic because the Gutenberg editor is still a problematic piece of crap.

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I’m just participating in the discussion. :slight_smile:

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I agree with some of @Marialena.S ideas.
But I also think that @anon66243189 has a plan and is willing to put the work in to make it work.
It is true that social media make you the content, but it is possible to use this at our advantage.
It is not unrelated traffic. A fb page or group can be used to funnel people.
It can be used to target specific people and talk to them.
This takes A LOT of work.
But it can be used to point people towards the site and the “download” button.
The fact is not every group achieves this, no matter how well it is managed because a group is made by the subscribers AND the admin, and no matter what, a group can for whatever reason and despite the admin efforts, become a toxic place from r whatever reason. (Been there, done that. I am not new in managing a community).
I am willing to see what comes out of this group, since it seems that now a plan is in place to make something good out of it.
It can be a funnel/entry point, a place where people create job opportunities around CP (increasing its popularity) or a simple discussion group. It can be something different.
Seeing how the unofficial group ended isn’t giving me good vibes, but I am clever enough not to judge the present basing on a past occurrence.
I expressed my concerns, and they have been heard. It is good to go ahead and see what comes out of that.

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