Hey, rock lovers! Have you heard of Revolution Radio yet? This radio channel presents the best classic rock, new rhythms, and lost recordings that leave music connoisseurs breathless.
About the Forum
Listeners discuss upcoming shows, comment on previous broadcasts and share pictures related to the song currently playing using the hashtag #InspiredBy. Also, bands use the forum to promote their records and merchandise.
What the Wix Forum team likes about this forum
Once you land in the Forum, the bright category images instantly make you feel the spirit of the music. The visuals give the website a strong identity - and the Forum has a clear topic as it revolves around the radio station. Active members feel comfortable sharing their feedback, respond to each other openly and often attach cool album artwork to their comments.
These two core components, a strong identity and an active community, are great ingredients for building a successful community.
Tips from the site owner
The Facebook factor
Site owner Darren says, "the biggest challenge was the Facebook factor. People expect everything to be like Facebook which is odd." He goes onto say, "A hardcore of people will not move from Facebook regardless."
Darren moved people to the Forum from existing Facebook groups
"If you already have a strong group, then you have to be patient and slowly drag them over to the Forum with exclusives, more features and so on. We found that praising the Forum and all its features and why Facebook wasn't fit for purpose at the start, made Facebook lovers dig their heels in.
Yes, do an initial campaign but try not to make it about why the Forum is better, but rather about how it's different and what that means for the service, platform or organization the user is in, in terms of better customer/member service. Also, if it's moving into the area we're in, with a lot of live posting and comments, make sure you define what the Forum is - in our case we call our Forum categories "chatrooms".
Darren avoids using the same words that Facebook uses to describe the Forum, when speaking to his community, so that people don’t think it works in the same way.
Provide value and keep it fresh
"You have to tie the Forum set up to what it is you do. If it's entertainment for example, then it has to be about enhancing the fun of your member, and not really about promoting how great you are. If you're a business, then use the Forum to make your clients/members feel that they are getting useful information.
Keep it constant and fresh. And don't overwhelm. We massively reduced the amount of chatrooms [categories] we had as soon as the Forum could have sub-chatrooms [sub-categories], and made navigation easier.”
Thank you everyone at WIX Forum for all the support too. We love it!