FTO AUSTRALIA

I am intrigued by the relatively low participation rate in this club and would be interested in looking at ways to improve this.

For example, we currently have over 1,200 members yet only a handful of them are actively involved in these forums. Since the recent articles in the magazines and the increased awareness of the club we have had over 50 new people register each month, and yet again we only hear from a small number of them. Similarly, the club is officially launching in June and only around 20 cars are going. This is pretty disapointing.

We know that the 1,200 member figure isn't correct and it would be nice to see that cleaned up at some stage, but the more important issue here is how do we increase activity?

The more people we have active on this site, the greater the pool of resources we have, the more we can save through group buys, and the more heads we can turn when we have events. Not to mention the more money we can raise for charity (for those states doing this).

So here's my suggestions and I'd like you, both newbie and oldie alike to share your thoughts and add your suggestions.
1) Create a "Suggestion Box" sticky
2) Create a "Group Buy" section or sticky rather than spreading them throughout the forum
3) Create a "Newbie & Common Question" section, as discussed in the "Help" section
4) Have one event each month for the larger states and one every 2-3 months for the smaller states
5) Be more newbie friendly, such as putting your name on any flyers you hand out, personally inviting them to events, introducing them at events etc.

In finishing I'd like to thank Steve and all the other people such as Tania and the various state reps who have been working hard on making this club become official, and who run this website and its forums. With their leadership and with suggestion from you, we can all work together to get more people active in this club and make it an even better one!

Some top ideas....

My thoughts, on another site I go on to, rather than a suggestion sticky, they have submit suggestion (rather like our submit news) - could make this idea easier to manage -
1/ if the person submitting the idea wishes to remain anonymous or is nervous about posting on the open site
2/ Suggestions that are viable could be put up for discussion, whereas some are simply not feasible.
3/ Moderator/s will have to respond to all suggestions

I am trying these days to send a quick pm to newbies, when I spot them, to just say hello and advise them of the club staff and who their state moderator is (this is difficult when no location is supplied)

I have also suggested that we have a club staff profile section, basically outlining who does what - who your state coordinator is etc.. etc...

Just my 2c worth.

Thanks Ruchi for your input and feedback

Cheers
Tanya

I wonder whether acitivty might be increased by moving the ICE, styling and performance sections back into the general discussion forum? A lot of people probably don't realise they are there, and just look in general discussion. I usually don't have time to visit 4 different forums (plus more if I visit the State forums), so I just look at General Discussion and sometimes tech/performance. I'm sure there are some posts in the other sections though that I would contribute to, if I saw them. Personally I'd rather scan down a long list of FTO related posts than have to click and load up several different ones. Anyway, just a thought and I'm sure there's others who prefer having separate sections. But Ruchi asked for suggestions to increase activity, so there you have one.

Having just sold my silvia to get my fto, I used to be on the www.nissansilvia.com forum.

This site to me was great as there was a lot of active members. I think the thing that made it work was all the articles. I think we should encourage people to create an article, submit it for approval and add it to an articles section. the things covered can be very basic mods of any sort, and works as a great reference spot.

I know I will be in on it, probably starting with my sub and amp install this weekend. I will take some snaps, and write how I did it and see how it goes.

Even articles on basic servicing info...have a look at nissansilvia.com and click on articles. may give some ideas.

Well all we have to do is post up the link for the articles, theres plenty of them on other FTO sites, but people you got to keep in mind that theres legal copyright issues here, so that mean steve have to contact every single articles owner inorder to use them, & thats going 2 take ages.

Unless someone going to do all the artical themself (which all the actually jobs) & then post them up.

Ohhh yeah & i use 2 own a S14a silvia, & was member of the nissansilvia site as well. So i know what u mean 21mrk, but theres also a lot more silvia out there 2. Hmmmm isn't one of our member in S.A is a moderator for nissansilvia site?

yeah, There sure are a lot more silvia/180 owners than fto

I think i will start documenting what I do on my fto, and if there is a section here that I can add it to then I will.

I dont think we should bother contacting people for their articles, but as complete some of the mods (and if others want to) I will document it, and send it to Steve (if he wants).

That way we can start to build our own article section, and if there are questions that people need answered on the articles, at least the person who wrote it will be a member and able to help out.

Low participation rates always happen on forums. Unless you give people their own niche's to be in, it will always happen.

Mind you I haven't seen any real life activity happening at least in victoria for quite some time in concerns with this group =)

True, there will always be a core group of people that will dominate the forums, its the nature of any community, however I think there needs to be more social events, not just offical club ones but where people just get the chance to meet and mingle.

Eh, a lot of socialogy stuff could be used here but I don't know squat about that =)

Anyways, I think this has to be dealt on the state level more than the national level =)

MADFTO wrote:Low participation rates always happen on forums.

Your statement appears to be true: of the 1,200 members registered 733 of them have never posted a message! Only around 17% have posted 10 or more messages and we've never had more than 17 users on the forum at once .

I guess the question is, should we just accept it and move on or should we try to get more people involved?

Even if the people who had registered were simply reading the messages then the number of people online at once should be higher. It would appear that many of them have registered, looked around, left and not come back. So what do we need to do to make newbies feel more welcome, to get them to hang around and ultimately to get them to participate more?

It seems to me that if people are going to the effort of joining then they must have an interest, so are we failing to make newbies welcome, are we scaring them off?

I know for me personally, that as a newbie I felt quite unsure about these forums until I went along to one of the events and met a few people. But even that was quite daunting, as I didn't know anyone, and I very nearly didn't go. Thankfully Scracy opened the door of friendship and took it upon himself to make me feel welcome and to introduce me to a number of other people. If that hadn't of happened then I probably wouldn't have come back. By the way, thanks for that Scracy

ruchi wrote:Even if the people who had registered were simply reading the messages then the number of people online at once should be higher.

Technically, it is possible even for members of this site to view the forums without logging on. They just might not be bothered entering login name & password if all they want to do is read through the posts or check just one particular section.

Does the maximum number of people at a time include guests?

True, it is possible to view the site without loging on, but it would be much harder to follow the topics, as only when you are logged in can you see which topics you've read and which messages you have not read.

Yes, the maximum number of people online also includes guests. So even if they are viewing the site without loging on, it would still appear that the activity level is very low.

So what can we do about it?

I honestly feel that there's very little we can do about it until the launch of the official club. Once CAMS and various discounts are organised, I think there will be a lot more regular visitors.

I don't think we're making noobs feel unwelcome. It's just that many people only join up for 1-2 queries and then never return until they need advice with something else. They might be willing to contribute some info/opinions themselves, but do not have the time available to log on regularly. Thus they only do it when it benefits them.

Maybe we should do a poll of the main reasons why members log on to this site

rxboy wrote:I don't think we're making noobs feel unwelcome. It's just that many people only join up for 1-2 queries and then never return until they need advice with something else. They might be willing to contribute some info/opinions themselves, but do not have the time available to log on regularly. Thus they only do it when it benefits them.

Maybe we should do a poll of the main reasons why members log on to this site

This was initially why i joined the forum to ask a few questions and get a few insights into what the car was like and info on insurance ect. however latley i have found that im coming back more and more but not posting. My major problem as a newbie is that i still dont know a hell of a lot about the car ect. and what i do know about it has mostly come from you guys on the forum so i really feel i have nothing much to contribute other than to ask quesions about my own problems. By the way im just back from holidays and the little red beast ran like a dream.

It's only taken 8mths, but we've finally broken the record of Oct '03 of having 17 people online at once. WOO HOO!

Earlier today we had 19 people online at once!

Hopefully this upward trend continues.