Site revamp, aggressive marketing, etc. - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum

cbaber · 08-28-2013, 11:24 PM

I love forums. I love wiki's. I love organized discussion and information for future reference. So naturally, I love what ecomodder has become. I think it's safe to say ecomodder dominates the competition as far as quality of content and activity. That being said, I think there is also room for improvement.

We are part of a small niche, but I believe we could reach more people than we do. There is so much good information from good members, I just wish more people were exposed to it. I think ecomodder should be aggressively marketing the forum/wiki to potential members. Google does a pretty good job bringing folks in, but more targeted marketing could bring in more active and contributing members.

Lets take a look at the current internet world. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. Those three sites make up a majority of the average internet users time spent online. While I do notice that ecomodder has accounts for all 3, are they used to their full potential? Do we have someone posting success stories and project summaries on social network sites, sort of like the front page of the forum? How many videos do we have on the channel? I think there is room for improvement on the social network front. People are there, ecomodder should be there too, spreading the word and getting people to come to the forum and post.

I'd also like too see the forum freshened up a bit. Lets bring it in to 2013. Not only can it impress potential members, a little bit of change is good for the veteran members too. I guess you could call me a design snob, but it is what it is, a suggestion from a different perspective.

This is the part where I throw myself out there if you would like a hand with what I have mentioned, or if you want further ideas. I've got experience with creating forums, websites, graphics, etc. Ecomodder has done a lot for me, and I'd love the opportunity to give back. I'm sure I am not alone. There could be people manning the social network accounts, interacting with potential members, posting the success stories or mod threads, etc. No doubt there are members willing to create video's about their cars, modifications, and driving techniques to upload on YouTube.

There is no doubt this is the place to be if you're interested in fuel economy. Lets keep it that way, and more! Thanks for listening to my thoughts.

MetroMPG · 08-29-2013, 10:41 AM

I love what EcoModder has become too.

And we (admins) are not at all opposed to social media... in fact we talk about it a couple of times a year!

(Although, ironically, none of the 3 admins uses FB/Twitter... and it's not even a generational thing -- me being the old guy here. The other guys are the real oddballs for not doing what 99.5% of their peers are apparently doing, faces glued to mobile devices.)

Here's the thing: our occasional social media discussions always come down to the same conclusion, which is that we're content with EM's status (in terms of growth/membership levels). The active members are generally fantastic. Overall activity is steady -- and it's more influenced by fuel prices than by anything else. HUGE correlation there. Not surprisingly.

Also -- and I'm speaking only for myself here -- I'm not much into evangelizing. My approach is not to try leading the horse to water. I'd rather just be the water. The genuinely interested/motivated horses know how to use Google, so they will find us, and they will drink. Those are the horses we want most to have around here.

ALL THAT SAID...

The biggest reason we don't pursue FB/Twitter/Youtube is it's extra work for us, and we each already have TMFP (Too Many ... Projects).

But we would absolutely welcome anyone who wants to help spread the word on other platforms ... a team of social media embassadors/contributors would be interesting.

EG: someone to post the occasional success story / selected threads on EM's Twitter feed? Fantastic! A FB page "editor" would also be great (we actually didn't start that one. An EM member did independently.) Someone to "curate" the EcoModder YouTube channel/playlists? I would actually love that one.

Frank Lee · 08-29-2013, 10:46 AM

I don't do Twit or Farcebook... but I could get into well made You Tube clips... at least until the introductory period for my high speed net runs out and I go back to slow *** dial-up.

MetroMPG · 08-29-2013, 10:53 AM

Yeah, the YouTube thing interests me the most. I waste a fair amount of time there now.

It does give me an idea for a feature that doesn't exist on the forum: wouldn't it be interesting to be able to search for threads/posts that have embedded YouTube vids? I'm not sure that's possible right now the way the vB forum search tool works. Could be wrong...

RedDevil · 08-29-2013, 11:26 AM

Go to Youtube and search for ecomodder. Enjoy!

To find youtube vids on this site (ecomodder.com) just search for both 'youtube' and whatever you want videos about; f.i. Draft & YouTube.
It picks the vids up because 'youtube' is in the posted URL.

jamesqf · 08-31-2013, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbaber

I'd also like too see the forum freshened up a bit. Lets bring it in to 2013. Not only can it impress potential members, a little bit of change is good for the veteran members too. I guess you could call me a design snob, but it is what it is, a suggestion from a different perspective.

I have to completely disagree with this. Keep the forum simple and usable. All that design crap does is make things difficult for those of us - probably the great majority - who don't choose to access the on-line world in just the same way as the designer. As an extreme example, consider the sites which lock out anyone not using accepted (usually IE) browsers, or even particular versions of them.