TimeTexasChris Posted August 3, 2022 Posted August 3, 2022 Before providing my suggestions, I just want to say that I'm extremely non-computer savvy and I'm also impatient. Using Invision, I've been able to 100% set up a really nice looking forum myself, which is essentially a miracle. So kudos for everyone involved with Invision for creating an intuitive and easy to use forum software. The forum I am setting up will likely be photo intensive. It seems to me and many others that Instagram is becoming increasingly video/reel driven, which makes for a terrible experience. I think this is an opportunity for forums that are heavy on photos to regain a foothold in the social media scene and pull people away from Instagram. Not entirely, but there is definitely frustration and as everyone here can attest, forums are far superior to Instagram for most things. But for sharing photos, which many people want to do, Instagram is still a great and easy to use platform. Bridging that gap might go a long way to increasing engagement. A few suggestions. Gallery - allow Members to have their own photo gallery which is automatically created when they upload a photo. This would be like going to someone's account and seeing all of their posts on Instagram and I believe really create a sense of "building" something within the community which would make them more likely to stay involved. This is especially true if people are looking to move their photo posting off of Instagram. Further to pulling people away from Instagram, if a post on Instagram could automatically feed into their member gallery, or vice versa, that would help the transition. As mentioned, my site is for watches and the clubs are set up to highlight specific brands. Allow the photo tags to be used to post the proper photos for specific clubs. This would allow for the photos to be tagged in a Members gallery or the general forum to also be used within specific clubs, etc. as part of a photo carousel. In any event, thank you again. Hopefully some of these suggestions are things others would find useful as well and maybe find their way into the software at some point. Cheers!
TimeTexasChris Posted August 13, 2022 Author Posted August 13, 2022 (edited) As a little more information, it seems there's some support gaining for alternatives to Instagram due to the recent changes to make it more like TikTok. A lot of people, at least in the watch community are looking at alternative social sites like WatchCrunch and Vero.co (IG clone without the ads and algorithm driven feeds). In any event, seems like an opportunity for dicussion forums to make some inroads for forums that are photo/IG heavy with some tweaks. Edited August 13, 2022 by TimeTexasChris
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