Dll

Can we talk about the terrible music on the video? 😅

Well that explains why you became a coder I guess. 

Well that explains why you became a coder I guess. 

Can we talk about the terrible music on the video? 😅

Well that explains why you became a coder I guess. 

Can we talk about the terrible music on the video? 😅

Well that explains why you became a coder I guess. 

Well that explains why you became a coder I guess. 

Well that explains why you became a coder I guess. 

Well that explains why you became a coder I guess. 

Can we talk about the terrible music on the video? 😅

Can we talk about the terrible music on the video? 😅

Can we talk about the terrible music on the video? 😅

Can we talk about the terrible music on the video? 😅

Deja Vu.
Come into blog entry, see this in the comments:

Leave again.
 

Deja Vu.
Come into blog entry, see this in the comments:

Leave again.
 

Deja Vu.
Come into blog entry, see this in the comments:

Leave again.
 

Deja Vu.
Come into blog entry, see this in the comments:

Leave again.
 

Deja Vu.
Come into blog entry, see this in the comments:

Leave again.
 

Deja Vu.
Come into blog entry, see this in the comments:

Leave again.
 

The truth is that despite the rose tinted specs maybe being worn by @Davyc, starting a forum in the years before social media wasn't a guarantee of success by any stretch. In fact, most failed, as they do now. 
As has already been mentioned by others, getting success with a community (and other web related stuff) requires a number of things to come together, luck included. In some respects, social media can help with starting a website or community etc, because it's an instant way to drive interest, whereas pre social-media you'd have to wait for google to find you or rely on less straight forward methods of getting the word out there.
That's not to say social media hasn't taken some traffic and opportunities away from communities, of course it has, and it's probably changed the type of communities which can and can't work. But, with the right idea, niche, and the right person or people driving it, along with that splice of luck, there's still loads of opportunity to create a thriving community. 

We have helped dozens of new and existing communities in the past few years. Not to mention all the hundreds or thousands who use us but don't work with us directly.
You need to offer value to users, and you need to market the community to present that value to them. Social media has a leg up on the second one because the users are already there, but there is no reason why an independent site (whether it's a 'forum based community' as you put it, or any other kind of community) cannot also be successful. There are many thousands of successful sites out there, so if a site doesn't succeed it cannot really be blamed on the tech giants. Either you didn't offer enough value, or you were unable to get it seen by the right people.
It's a bit weird to measure your success in terms of number of members vs. Facebook. Measure your success in something more meaningful to your site. Is it providing value to people, is it covering its own costs, is it growing? A small community site with 100 people can absolutely be counted as a success if it has achieved its goals.

The truth is that despite the rose tinted specs maybe being worn by @Davyc, starting a forum in the years before social media wasn't a guarantee of success by any stretch. In fact, most failed, as they do now. 
As has already been mentioned by others, getting success with a community (and other web related stuff) requires a number of things to come together, luck included. In some respects, social media can help with starting a website or community etc, because it's an instant way to drive interest, whereas pre social-media you'd have to wait for google to find you or rely on less straight forward methods of getting the word out there.
That's not to say social media hasn't taken some traffic and opportunities away from communities, of course it has, and it's probably changed the type of communities which can and can't work. But, with the right idea, niche, and the right person or people driving it, along with that splice of luck, there's still loads of opportunity to create a thriving community. 

That difference between business and hobby is a red herring. It’s relevant in regards to financing a community website, but hardly in terms of starting one. If I start a community as business venture, I still have zero members just as a hobby site. 
I also think that the search volume matters, because it is still a big opportunity to get traffic to communities. When I search on Google, I am not ending up in Facebook or What’sApp groups or on Discord. Traditional communities can still work well here. 
Apart from that, this is only going in circles. Yes, those tips are about nurturing an existing community. That’s why the title is How to inspire your community's members to engage. Everything else is something else. Coming up with a concept for a community that users will want to sign up for won’t be in an article. That’s something the owner of each community needs to find and try out. It’s easy to blame social media when it doesn’t work out, but the growth of IPS with 27,000 current IPS clients who pay their renewals every 6 months currently doesn’t give the appearance that social media is taking over.