Are Facebook groups and pages really better suited to perfume-related discussion, I wonder?
Online forum sites have been a gathering place for fragrance aficionados since the Internet has been able to have forum sites. I love the sense of community and interaction: the ability to have people help with questions or insights and the sharing of reviews, photos and statements. I belong to basenotes and Parfumo as both are invaluable knowledge bases for all things perfume. Fragrance fora can be information goldmines, although some require digging deep through online drama to reach the useful bits. Regardless, for more than 17 years, web-based perfume fora have long been
the places to go for online-fragrance enthusiasm. But that seems to have changed, hitting parfumo.com the hardest – no denying the drastic drop in forum participation within the last couple of years or so.
A friend of mine recently mentioned he thought Facebook was killing online fora. It dawned on me that perhaps forum sites in general are being adversely affected by Facebook's popularity. Being the "new kid in high school" parfumo.com may simply be the first fragrance community to have to face the demise of its forum. It got me thinking and researching: is Facebook replacing online fora? There were over 2 billion monthly active users on Facebook as of September, 2017. Of that, 1.37 billion users were active on a daily basis, presumably mobile. (Source:
Facebook) That means there are a lot of people who have Facebook's ubiquitous mobile app turned on all the time, which, in turn, means quick responses to questions and seemingly instant feedback in groups and on pages.
I can see it with prompt replies as well as the ease of access or posting links and videos. Yet, does that really suffice, I wonder. One of the disadvantages to Facebook groups and pages is the fact that they, unlike traditional forum sites, are not as searchable. Fora provide a vast array of topics, conversations and reviews that let users dig through existing knowledge and insights. Facebook, much like most social-media outlets, is more instant and has a considerably faster burn than a forum site.
The other disadvantage of Facebook group/pages is the inability to host longer, content-rich features such as editorial content, which includes feature articles, reviews and the like. Content that is generated by a perceived credible resource seems to still draws solid numbers. Perhaps feature articles is something both basenotes and Fragrantica do right as they apparently are able to still attract a relatively steady group of active members.
There is no fragrance group on Facebook I happen to know, where it is anything beyond trading or the gratification of instant (yet momentary) responses. All could be had here with the old crew as much as with a new one or both, even less fleeting so. I believe the Souk to be perfectly suited to trading. Functionalities can, per se, be adjusted and upgraded. The Parfumo App is still in its infancy but potentially cut out for addressing the increasingly mobile nature of online interaction. But is it really a question of usability only? If so, then why does Parfumo, which already is mobile-friendly and offers by far the most sophisticated platform – nifty functionalities (Assistant, Photo Gallery, Research,
Search by Note, Souk, etc.) and a comprehensive database – not convince?
Facebook has got so much of a fast-paced drift into nothingness once likes and replies cease to drop in, that I fail to grasp its appeal for perfume-based discussion. Nonetheless, perhaps we are indeed in the midst of the next great online transformation of fragrance community, much like the shift from mailing lists to forum sites and Parfumo's mobile app, if developed further, might turn out to lead the way.
So, is Facebook indeed killing fragrance fora or is there a future for a format such as Parfumo? If there is, how do you envision it to be?