I like posting here. Traffic is way down, which threatens my ability to keep posting here. Conclusion: we need more posters.
Several different ideas have been bandied about concerning ways to attract new users to the site. Some of the ideas are good, but there is some paralysis about which to pursue. So let’s just pick one and try it without worrying about whether it’s optimal.
We have some money in the bank. I’m not sure about the exact number, but I think it’s more than $1000 that we can easily spend without worrying about keeping the lights on IIRC. So let’s spend some of it and not worry about if this is max +EV. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good and all that.
Who knows how to make this happen? Let’s make it happen.
We could target ad spend on google search terms like “politics discussion” or “music games named after blubbery animals”.
Brag: More hyper targeted to the persons intent.
Beat: Its Google.
Variance: Could try duckduckgo instead?
We could buy ads on reddit.
Brag: They are already on a forum type place.
Beat: Since they are already on a forum type place we would need to differentiate ourselves to lure them away.
Variance: There are probably other forums out there that arent so big on political discourse as their main topic is something else. Perhaps finding one and arranging to purchase a banner on their site would be interesting.
Somewhat unrelated, but I do wonder if there are too many threads on Unstuck. Seems like in the 2p2 days in both Politics and SE there were a handful of mega threads where everyone knew where to post and where most of the conversation was happening.
I wonder if having those more central mega threads created more crosstalk and ultimately drove conversation and engagement.
I think we need someone who volunteers to dedicate time to this. SEO strategies would probably help us the most. I don’t know a lot about that. I also don’t know a lot about buying targeted ads other than it’s very expensive on facebook - like $1 a click.
Whatever advertising we do may be out of our budget. We have a decent twitter presence. We are growing still - but it’s very slow and post counts are dropping off a lot.
If I get a spare few minutes today I’ll post our usage trends from the last 6 months. It’s not super bleak but the post counts are definitely down. Even I myself find i’m using the site a lot less and idk why. Maybe trump was the big draw.
I think this site could be and is a lot more than political discussion. The off topic forums are excellent. We need to advertise that somehow. We need to brand ourselves somehow.
I’ve been lazy about updating the money thing, but my work life has recently calmed down and I’ll try to post something today or tomorrow. I would love to figure out a way to attract new users here. A couple of random thoughts:
I think referencing good UP posts on twitter or reddit could be useful. Like, I think a recent post that I wrote in the stonks thread about the prevalence of very large, unprofitable companies was substantive and would be interesting enough to attract one or two clicks.
Mega threads can be really intimidating to people like me who are scared of jumping in someplace new mid-conversation, but who are also unwilling to read the first 30,000 posts in a thread.
I’m in favor of more non-politics content and users, particularly since politics has receded from a lot of people’s minds since 2020.
Of course, I should try to be the change I seek, and actually contribute to more off-topic discussions if that’s what I’m looking for. I think what I’d like most is an active low-content thread that is explicitly non-politics. I am probably a lunatic, but I enjoy reading about other people’s experiences/preferences related to mundate things like:
How frequently do you purchase a pineapple, procrastinate cutting it because you’re lazy, and then find out you’ve waited too long and it’s all rotten?
Where exactly is the optimal place to cut your toenails?
Where do you draw the line between a barber and a hair stylist? (A reasonable decision rule would be that if they wash your hair, they’re a stylist.)
It’s partially a matter of what topics are discussed and it’s partially a matter of organization. The main LC thread is classified in the Politics & News section. (This doesn’t matter for people who display threads on chronological order, but it might matter for people new to the site.)
As for content, even as a regular user here, I feel super weird jumping into a LC thread that’s talking about something moderately serious like, say, NY politicians’ knowledge of local housing prices, to talk about something stupid like pineapple cutting or toenail clipping.
There’s no “plan” but this wouldn’t be a bad thing. You could still make politics the main topic, but have a rich off topic community. Kind of like what 2p2 became.
