Pivoting to Community SIte (Need your advice)

community
1

Hi, so I started a directory website for my local community that didn’t grow. The site’s been up for about 3 years now but there’s been no real growth.

I attribute that to Google My Business. The Big G has killed the local directory business. Anyway, we have a thriving Instagram community and I’m seriously thinking about retiring the directory/blog model for a forum and let user-generated content drive it.

My target area is one of the fastest growing regions in my city. How would you advice I grow the forum ensuring it becomes succesful in little time. The niche is hyperlocal.

2

Hey there. I’m a bit confused. Do you want to grow the directory or retire it in favour of a forum?

4

Thank you. I’ve corrected that. I intend to retire the directory and grow the forum. What’s your advice?

5

Step 1 for success is making sure you are fulfilling a need. Have you talked to your potential audience to make sure that they actually want or need a forum?

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6

I believe they do. It’s a vibrant and fast-growing city with a very upwardly mobile educated population.

7

It’s a reasonably common trap to design based on assumptions.

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8

Who is having the problem you’re trying to solve? What are they doing right now to work around that problem? Have people reached out to you and said they will contribute in some way?

Blogs and directories can be user-generated and frankly offer a better experience for the person looking for something as they can be geolocation based from a phone.

I don’t think changing platforms is going to help your situation.

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