Attracting Traffic to FWF

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kcowan
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Attracting Traffic to FWF

Post by kcowan »

Split from another thread
ModW


We are currently trying to figure out how to attract more people like you to FWF. We have agreed that the webring concept is no longer hip. Yet you were drawn here by two leading members of the webring (bylo and shakes).

We have concluded that finiki is the real initial draw. So we would really appreciate your comments on that.
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by mcbar »

kcowan wrote:We are currently trying to figure out how to attract more people like you to FWF. We have agreed that the webring concept is no longer hip. Yet you were drawn here by two leading members of the webring (bylo and shakes).

We have concluded that finiki is the real initial draw. So we would really appreciate your comments on that.

As a recent member myself, my brother initially directed me towards the forum, and I found the wiki after lurking here for a while. Both have been great resources.

This is slightly off topic, but have you guys considered setting up a facebook page or something for the wiki?
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by Shakespeare »

mcbar wrote:As a recent member myself, my brother initially directed me towards the forum, and I found the wiki after lurking here for a while. Both have been great resources.

This is slightly off topic, but have you guys considered setting up a facebook page or something for the wiki?
Interesting idea. Thank you.

Most of the management and ownership group is old farts who don't do facebook. Not sure that would have occurred to us.
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by Pickles »

Shakespeare wrote:
mcbar wrote:This is slightly off topic, but have you guys considered setting up a facebook page or something for the wiki?
Interesting idea. Thank you.

Most of the management and ownership group is old farts who don't do facebook. Not sure that would have occurred to us.
Some of us "do Facebook", Shakespeare. I just never saw how Facebook would be useful as an alternative/supplement to the forum. The big stickler for me is that it is owned and controlled by a commercial company.

Can you give a couple of examples of how a Facebook page might help young investors, mcbar?
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by Shakespeare »

Some of us "do Facebook", Shakespeare
That's why I said "most", not "all". :wink:
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by Pickles »

Shakespeare wrote:
Some of us "do Facebook", Shakespeare
That's why I said "most", not "all". :wink:
At one time, half the Regents had Facebook pages, Shakespeare.
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by mcbar »

Pickles wrote:Can you give a couple of examples of how a Facebook page might help young investors, mcbar?

Most young people get their news through facebook, rather than news sites, blog readers, webrings etc. Having a facebook page to broadcast blog posts, discussions and the occaisional finiki page would make the information more easily shareable with people who are otherwise not connected to anything to do with finance, and would hopefully direct more traffic to the wiki.

Judging by the questions that most new users post here, I think it's fair to say that most people who happen accross the forums have at least some existing interest and knowledge in personal finance - unfortunately many young people don't recieve that exposure, and certainly aren't learning about it in school. A facebook page might make your resource more accessible to people who have no idea they even need it ;)
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by Shakespeare »

Well, I suppose the finiki 'new pages' source could be used as a feed, as long as it was restricted to content pages and not formatting or template pages.
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by Bylo Selhi »

What about Twitter? Should we put links to selected financial (not Watercooler!) threads and/or finiki articles on an FWF Twitter feed?

If so, who decides what's worthy of a tweet?

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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by mcbar »

Bogleheads seems to have one, might make a good point of reference.

http://www.facebook.com/Bogleheads

Bylo, I'm not overly partial to either facebook or twitter myself, unfortunately they've established themselves as part of the mainstream media. My grandpa still hates television. Go figure :P
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by Brix »

mcbar wrote:A facebook page might make your resource more accessible to people who have no idea they even need it ;)
May as well hop onto Tumblr and Twitter as well. Though getting out the good word via Pinterest might be a bridge too far... :wink:
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by izzy »

Brix wrote:
mcbar wrote:A facebook page might make your resource more accessible to people who have no idea they even need it ;)
May as well hop onto Tumblr and Twitter as well. Though getting out the good word via Pinterest might be a bridge too far... :wink:
If there is content that can only be accessed through social media you risk driving some of us oldsters away though,and changing the whole emphasis /purpose of the forum!! May NOT be a bad thing IF that's your intention of course.Personally I'm very suspicious of Facebook for instance-although I do have a page I sign in infrequently and almost never post .
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by Shakespeare »

I think the idea would be to distribute "news" through social media.

Me, I have no intention of using Facebook. :roll:
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by SkaSka »

I have to admit that I never would have found this forum if I wasn’t interested in learning about MERs, or personal finance in general. It was through curiosity and a desire to learn that I kept opening up doors that eventually led me here.

I first found Bylo’s page on MERs and for a few weeks, I didn’t move beyond that page because I didn’t notice that at the bottom there was a link to his homepage. When I noticed that homepage button at the bottom, I clicked it and looked around the entire site. From there I saw a link to Shakespeare’s primer which I clicked on. Then I looked around Shakespeare’s site, read the primer and found the finiki (through useful links in the primer on words such as TFSA, RRSP, etc). So I was able to soak up material from the primer and supplement it with finiki until I was finished reading the primer. Then, I read some articles and eventually found the link to the forum.

So it was not a very straight forward way that I got here, and in my case, it was really because of personal interest and curiosity that led me here. I don’t think any young person would ever find their way here unless they found it through personal interest or as mcbar said, was referred here.

I’ve referred a couple of my friends to Shakespeare’s primer and if I left it to their own accord, maybe they would also stumble their way to the forum here. I guess I can tell them about the finiki and forum just so they do find it.

I definitely will be referring more of my friends here so hopefully there will be a slight increase in the younger crowd.

In terms of attracting more young people to the finki and the forum, I would echo mcbar’s recommendation of Facebook, however, I’m not the biggest fan of Facebook and use it mainly just for keeping in touch with friends who are far away.

Another idea is to use Reddit to promote the site. When answering people’s questions or comments, a link to the finiki or the forum could be provided. Since the material is well written and a good source of information, the comment could be voted up where it will garner more visibility.

That’s one idea I have that doesn't have to involve Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, etc.
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by DenisD »

How about a FB Like button on FWF and Finiki?
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by AltaRed »

DenisD wrote:How about a FB Like button on FWF and Finiki?
That would be a necessary component BUT it would still take effort to feed the FB page with some relevant headlines. That requires individuals, i.e. us the members, to post sound bites of information on the FB page with links back to the website.

Mcbar is right.... young'uns identify with Facebook AND with slick website graphics. My experience with a community association was that there was an order of magnitude difference in the number of people (primarily in their 20s and 30s) accessing the FB page than the website directly itself. It was primarily through links on the FB page that residents ended up on the website. These ARE the people we are trying to attract.
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by Pickles »

mcbar wrote:Bogleheads seems to have one, might make a good point of reference.

http://www.facebook.com/Bogleheads
I had no idea. I'll check it out on the weekend. We can also talk to them about any issues they've encountered (eg. commercial ads, spam, etc.).
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by Brix »

Also: it might be worth considering whether this forum could be rebranded or retagged such that search engines turn it up reasonably prominently in general subject searches ("Canada + [personal finance | financial education/planning | DIY investment ]" and so on).
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by MALDI_ToF »

Brix wrote:Also: it might be worth considering whether this forum could be rebranded or retagged such that search engines turn it up reasonably prominently in general subject searches ("Canada + [personal finance | financial education/planning | DIY investment ]" and so on).
I think that is a good idea. So many places are US oriented. As a young Canadian finding this was a gold mine as finally there was no talking about converting to a ROTH IRA and writing off mortgage interest!

I like the forum format. The wiki addon is great, but I think should be promoted more on the forum page. The native search is quite useful. I don't know about twitter (never really understood that), but I think a FB presence can attract the younger generation (but not those like me as I hate FB and will never go on it, but I think I am the exception).
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by DenisD »

People who post/comment on FB Page would not be anonymous. Not a problem for me. But might be for some.
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by AltaRed »

DenisD wrote:People who post/comment on FB Page would not be anonymous.
A good point and one that I forgot to add to my prior post.
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by Shine »

I tried FB for one year and the experience was, as the old quip goes, both tedious and boring. Hundreds of Filipino and Indonesian teenagers flooded my account to be a friend, some gruesome souls stalked my site, and advertisers and scam sites drove me crazy.

Don't ever change the literacy to accommodate the medium - if so, you might find yourself tagging railway cars after midnite.

Twitter is for shallow people incapable of sustained thought. It is the "People Magazine" for 15 year old girls, self identified media stars, and the fools who follow them - that is, marketeers!n :wink:
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by mcbar »

The forum format is invaluable - being able to post about one's own circumstance and get individualized feedback is extremely helpful.

A facebook page would never replace the resources you guys have already created - it could only supplement it. It would just be an easy medium to share some of that information with people who don't know and might not necessarily be looking. People in my circle of friends often ask me basic questions related to personal finance because they haven't had any exposure to it whatsoever. It would be nice to have a convenient method to share information with lots of people - including people who might be interested in learning more about managing their money but don't know who to ask or where to look.
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by mcbar »

Shine wrote: Twitter is for shallow people incapable of sustained thought. It is the "People Magazine" for 15 year old girls, self identified media stars, and the fools who follow them - that is, marketeers!n :wink:

Shine, while I agree with you to an extent, I don't think that's a completely fair assessment of twitter's value.

I dislike twitter, and I don't use it personally, but I do feel that it contributes to our ability to share information in a meaningful way. For example, a couple years ago there was severe flooding in my hometown. A friend of mine in the city I'm currently living in happened to be following a journalist who was visiting my home town and was able to ask specific questions about the damage and the way municipal government was responding. That information was of course shared with anyone else who was following that journalist, and also on the website of the newspaper. Twitter can be an endless streaming source of BS, but it can also be a responsive, participatory source of news.

Just like a forum can be devoted to celebrity gossip, or something valuable like personal finance :P It really depends on the user, not the medium.

Sorry for the double post, and really sorry for completely derailing this thread.
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Re: Financial Plan for a Young Investor (and a thank you)

Post by kcowan »

My youngest son works for a company whose mission is to develop social media strategies for established companies. The reason that I offer this is because the idea requires a great deal of knowledge if it is to be done right. That company and many others exist because companies run by 50yo have no clue how to draw in 20-somethings.

To paraphrase a recent US VP, we don't know! I appreciate the answers provided by our two younger newbies. Thanks.

(I still use email for texting and cell phone for voice although I have been weaned off of FAX! Hell I even watch TV to get news.)
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