Sports Betting Forums

Hi everyone
I'm brand new here, and my first post, so be gentle.

I run a Sports Betting Forum, and have done for about six years. It just seems that there is no enthusiasm to join forums any more.
When I seen my forum numbers starting to dwindle, I created a Facebook Page to try and promote it.

It seems that the Facebook page is very well liked with nearly 2000 friends, and whenever I post up links from my forum, lots of people will click through and read, but getting them to sign up and participate is a harder task

Is Social Media killing Forums

Discuss

Hi Col ,

Welcome to the gpwa forum . I think Social Media is a good way of promoting your websites and forums . But in my opinion it needs time . 2000 is quite good number . If you direct people to your forum with your post , you will see visits. Keeping facebook pages up-to-date is important so that people will have chance to visit your forum and see what it is about , and if they like , they will create accounts and follow.

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Originally Posted by Col

Is Social Media killing Forums
Discuss

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Yes.

Keeping an active forum is very difficult. The GPWA (this forum) has about 15,000 members, yet there are only a few active posters on here, the rest just sit back and watch or never log in again.
If you are lucky you can create a forum where-by it will eventually look after itself, taken care of by unpaid moderators. But that is rare, there are always people out there looking to damage it, spam it, exploit it etc. In that respect Facebook is better, and with 2000 likes, that is some nice figures. I personally would work on the Facebook side of things.

Twitter beats Facebok beats Forums.

Welcome to the forum!

Hello Col! Welcome to GPWA Forum!

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Originally Posted by DanHorvat

Twitter beats Facebok beats Forums.

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I think that depends on the country. In Belgium Twitter isn't so popular but almost everyone uses Facebook.


Welcome to GPWA, Col!

Twitter? It's popular for quotes in the media but hardly a forum replacement.

Facebook is the forum killer in my opinion - it provides an easy mechanism for communication links and content.

The era of big forums about smalltalk are over since it is where it has to be. At TB, TW, Pinterest etc.

However there is still place for niche forums for people who are experts/outsiders etc. My opinion is that to have a forum today it is about very proactive approach of admins/mods, that create mood that is far from the "everybody can tell what he likes" at facebook etc.

I have small gambling forum, unfortunately no time for it or it simply does not pay me off to care for it as I cared for years. Still it is possible to make nice living from small forum.

So if you want a forum, you must care for it and you must initiate interesting debates. And interesting means really interesting. And since we talk about gambling you simply should know about gambling more than the people or about sports at least. I see no other way.

Plus ghost posting in the beginning is inevitable, which can turn tricky as time goes on.

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Originally Posted by TheGooner

Twitter? It's popular for quotes in the media but hardly a forum replacement.

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Kids think Facebook is uncool, so I'm expecting Twitter popularity to rise.

When deciding whether to communicate with customers during a World Cup match through Twitter, Facebook or a forum, I'm choosing Twitter. The tweets, sent from my phone while watching the match in a bar, will be posted on Facebook and on the match preview article on my site.

Thanks for the Welcome Ladies and Gents

Not quite sure I get the attraction of Facebook, if it wasn't for trying to promote my site, I don't think I would be on there at all.
What makes thousands of reasonably sane people, log in to see if Joe up the road has told everybody he has just been to the Gym, or indeed, if Sarah has posted up a picture of the carvery lunch she is about to have. :eyebrow:

Twitter on the other hand, seems to be about seeing how many famous people you can follow, and hang on their every word.

Anyway, I digress
The type of people who are friends with me on Facebook, are obviously sports minded, so I'll continue to post up sports betting tips and affiliate links. the problem is, it's easier for those people to post up that they think Man United will win today, on Facebook without any reasoning.
Rather than join a forum, and have to give a reason for that selection.

If there are any more thoughts on this, I'd love to read them.

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Originally Posted by Col

The type of people who are friends with me on Facebook, are obviously sports minded, so I'll continue to post up sports betting tips and affiliate links. the problem is, it's easier for those people to post up that they think Man United will win today, on Facebook without any reasoning.
Rather than join a forum, and have to give a reason for that selection.

If there are any more thoughts on this, I'd love to read them.

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Do you really think this works and is not short-sighted? In fact, you do not know if ManU wins or not or odds are good or not. Most people do not know either. But in fact all you care is your money and affiliate income. And with this kind of post you lose all your reputation and you lose it forever. I think this is cheap and I think even people are not so dumb to buy this in year 2014. I mean: people are enough dumb to lose time and sources with gambling but they are not so dumb to feel your intentions. We are all greedy after all and we know it.

There is a difference if you post odds for a game or you say Manchester will win, bet on it (you idiots).

Everyone nowadays has identity crisis, every gambler wants to express himself and his "opinion" thru gambling. People want options and illusion of freedom to do whatever they want and gambling is their porn. Affiliate should respect this, I think.

Be it forums or Facebook or whatever, but one has to keep in mind who his customer is. In gambling there were always desperate losers, but nowadays it is obvious shift from losers that need advice and hope in lucky win to losers who are after the illusion of freedom of choice. The betting tips sites and everything that looks like that are becoming to be known scam. It is better not to be involved - at least this is what I think.

Sherlock, very well said

Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by Sherlock

Do you really think this works and is not short-sighted? In fact, you do not know if ManU wins or not or odds are good or not. Most people do not know either. But in fact all you care is your money and affiliate income. And with this kind of post you lose all your reputation and you lose it forever. I think this is cheap and I think even people are not so dumb to buy this in year 2014. I mean: people are enough dumb to lose time and sources with gambling but they are not so dumb to feel your intentions. We are all greedy after all and we know it.

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I'm not really sure what I said that made you take it this way Sherlock.

I post up a tip on my Forum, and then post the very same at Facebook. Here's what I posted at Facebook today.

Chelsea v Liverpool 16:00

Chelsea are unbeaten in 18 home games and they’ve won 15 of the last 17. Moreover, they’ve won seven of their last eight home games against top-half teams and home advantage has been particularly significant this term in clashes between the biggest teams. Liverpool have been rampant at home but inconsistent on the road this season and since 2010/11 their record at top-five sides is just W2-D5-L11 and they are winless in the last 11 of those matches.
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Recommendation: Chelsea to win at 2.2, Various

That to me is an informed post, and gives any readers thinking of betting on the match, an opinion.

Then hopefully inviting them to come over to the forum and read some more.

Chelsea won 2-1 by the way

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Originally Posted by Sherlock

Be it forums or Facebook or whatever, but one has to keep in mind who his customer is. In gambling there were always desperate losers, but nowadays it is obvious shift from losers that need advice and hope in lucky win to losers who are after the illusion of freedom of choice. The betting tips sites and everything that looks like that are becoming to be known scam. It is better not to be involved - at least this is what I think.

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Can I ask what you promote sherlock, given your strong views on gambling

Are you not going to reply sherlock. ?
you think it's ok to condemn someone on a forum with your views, but then just slink off and not debate what you said.

I run a Sports betting forum, and all our members post up sports betting tips, what is it that you find so wrong in that.
Sports betting is massive. I am only promoting my site, by posting the very same tips on Facebook.

The people who are my friends on Facebook, would not have asked to be my friend, if they didn't want to read what I have to say.
That is how Facebook works.

I await your views

sorry, i rely on gpwa on email alterts and until now i did not get them for this thread

reading.... replying

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Originally Posted by Col

I'm not really sure what I said that made you take it this way Sherlock.

I post up a tip on my Forum, and then post the very same at Facebook. Here's what I posted at Facebook today.

Chelsea v Liverpool 16:00

Chelsea are unbeaten in 18 home games and they’ve won 15 of the last 17. Moreover, they’ve won seven of their last eight home games against top-half teams and home advantage has been particularly significant this term in clashes between the biggest teams. Liverpool have been rampant at home but inconsistent on the road this season and since 2010/11 their record at top-five sides is just W2-D5-L11 and they are winless in the last 11 of those matches.
.
Recommendation: Chelsea to win at 2.2, Various

That to me is an informed post, and gives any readers thinking of betting on the match, an opinion.

Then hopefully inviting them to come over to the forum and read some more.

Chelsea won 2-1 by the way

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I did try something like that on my websites as well, where I outsourced this to professional writer. I did those reviews on blogs not forums, but there was no result. And I had those blogposts announced on the top of page with HUGE traffic. People came, read, very few converted (compared to other methods of conversion), almost none returned, even when there were tens of thousands.

Yes it was not forum, but it says something how uninterested audience is, how overfilled is with those predictions that are here obviously just for affiliate money (even if they do not know what affiliate is).

As for those bettingtips posts - I would not go for them unless you have real expert. And the problem is that the real experts are asocial millionaires, who rather bet for themselves and they are very rare.

So simply put - I do not think those reviews are good content for good people. For SEO purposes...maybe (but even I was not lucky with those articles and SEO).

The forum generally is about meeting of people. Besides the fact the forum must have some good topic, it has to be also a place where people go to chat when they do not want to be on Facebook, Twitter etc. It must be something in opposition to normal reality.

Since you would be the only admin/mod, you have to play a strong role and you have to give your heart into it. The article as you presented is just some artificial article. No one will take a deep look into it.

On my forum I have very fascist policy for example, since simply I am fed up with idiots and since I spend my time there I do not want to read nonsense. But I have to offer something - my soul. I connected the forum even with my very personal blog. I tried to help many people (not big success). I do not want to write too long post here, but simply - if you want to do forums it is still possible, but be prepared if you follow path I am trying to describe, that your life you live until now is gone. You will become public person even if anonymous and you have to throw people more than just some articles. You have to give them truth - about betting, you, affiliates, even your girl and your cat if the forum goes on. Many people will try to take advantage of you and **** you off and you must still go on. In psychoanalytic theory you are becoming The Other or The Father... an archetype into which the other people project their hopes and fears and anger. Yes indeed there are big forums like covers.com that do not play this, they are like big corporation and people go there as they go shopping to Tesco to buy cheap prebaked bread. However you have to be like the bakery at the corner, where buying and spending time has some magic, because you know the guy who runs the shop and he knows you and cares. Understood?

And that is more than some article where Chelsea won. For example - for this match I saw promo at Betfred - where they had Chelsea with promo odds 4.0 or 5.0 (3/1 or 4/1 idk). And THAT is advice that people want since yes, it is free money and you can tell it without shame. I hope this makes some sense.

I do not know facebook or twitter, I can not stand the idiocy there, but maybe is possible to catch people there somehow and show them another reality. The bored lost souls, who knows. But you have to speak and interact with the dark side of humanity. For me, I must admit, running of the forum changed my life completely. The easygoing life, where i was making only little above average money and did not care for others and just observing the world from safe distance changed into rollercoaster, where I do not know who I am and I only know my fate is to work for the world and others and my small and secret pleasures are vanishing.

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Originally Posted by Col

Can I ask what you promote sherlock, given your strong views on gambling

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It depends where. On the forum I promote almost only one brand - PinnacleSports. Sometimes Bet365, but there I amke no money since guys are pros, but still I wanted to promote them for free in my country for some people that go around and want decent book for casual betting, since it is no brainer - for normal bettor there is no better place than Bet365.

But the forum itself about 5 years ago gave me idea to do other things. The guys from forum and the interaction brings so many ideas, that I luckily registered some killer domains good for projects casual bettors and there I promote classic brands - the ones that are strong in each country. However those sites are not the "interaction" type of websites. I was thinking to create there forum attached to it. It would work. But I am busy with many other things and my mind is not capable to deal with many people anymore.

For forum I strictly advise to stick with the best ones. Proffesionals - Pinnacle. Asia - get and agent deal from IBCbet or something like that (no experience). USA - commission.bz, bovada, 5dimes. Rest of World - Bet365.

But it does not mean you can not do other things like to put affilaite link when you recommend actual promo from Betfred as stated above or you can use the interlinking modes, where text turns into affiliate links everytime someone mentions it.

And from the beginning do not even think about monetization. You need the traffic that will return and co-create content with you.