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Where is everybody? Migrated to Facebook?

Where is everybody? Migrated to Facebook? 12 years ago
This board is growing at a snail's pace. I often wonder why. I know it's fairly new, but I'm still surprised at the slow growth. Could Facebook be attracting most of the traffic that is not exclusively loyal to either basenotes or Fragrantica?

What can we, as members, do to help get the word out about this site? I sing its praises to fragrance lovers that I come across but there must be more that can be done. I'm only asking/wondering because the more I visit this site, the more I love it. It has got a lot of features that other boards have too, but it also has a lot of features that other boards do not have.... awesome features that is! I would really hate it if, God forbid, this site ever went away. I don't know... I guess I just am anxious for others to discover this diamond as I have. I really like it here.
12 years ago
Thank you so much for your praise of our work. Wink
There is definitely room for more users here. We'd love to see more here!

What you can do? Spread the word! Share this page on Facebook, recommend it to your friends!

And no worries...Parfumo International is continuously being developed further. We know it's good - and more users will arrive sooner or later. Wink
12 years ago
I love it here also, but very little time to spread my attention between places.

All I know is that many people from all kinds of places/fora took refuge on Facebook and that community is very very active.
As facebook is very visual, with lots of pictures I mean, it is attractive to people who like visual stimuli.
Also the YouTube community is very active: again: very visual.

Writing and reading on a forum, which is very text-based and takes more energy/time, and even maybe more personal confidence, to participate in (most people on the www are lurkers)...
and then you have the peer-group, groups of friends and social circles who all "stay together" and do not fan out much.

I would love to participate more, even more so now that I decided to minimize my time on facebook... but still I do not come around making reviews or posts here... Maybe in fall Smile
I DO promote Parfumo on YouTube and twitter a lot.... I hope it helps Smile
12 years ago
Guusje, thank you so much for promoting Parfumo!

I wish I would have more time to go to facebook groups or youtube more often and drop a word about Parfumo here and there. However, Parfumo keeps me busy enough so I hope others do the job!

While Parfumo will always have a clean graphic design, it is already becoming more visual. The perfume photo upload is a big success: every day I see new photos being uploaded by several people.

Have you noticed that there is also a Youtube link button in the perfume reviews (new feature!)? You need not write an eloborate review; you can instead drop a few words and place a link to your Youtube review of that fragrance. (I would love to see that feature being used finally)
12 years ago
Yes I have noticed! It is great!

I am working on making lots of Youtube reviews in fall Smile
Made some already, but not upload worthy.
But they will come! Smile

It all will fall into place here, it just takes time
Smile
11 years ago
I had a lot of personal issues to solve in the past months and hence did not have much time and muse for Parfumo. Things are getting sorted out more and more now and I am really looking forward to drop by more often again in the future.
Kind greetings to everyone I have encountered here so far.
11 years ago
Work, work, work and more work. A few new reviews coming soon.
6 years ago
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?
6 years ago
Dear Mia, Thank you for many interesting points and in-depth analysis with background information.
I cannot contribute much to the discussion, I'm afraid, since I quit Facebook about 10 years ago when it became more and more "cluttered" for my taste. Even now, I feel somewhat too stupid to navigate there through all the options and being spammed with info unasked for.

I have not looked into any perfume discussion groups there. However, from this viewpoint, I can only imagine, for one, the 'instant gratification' you mentioned, including the 'being served fast' as the reason for people's preference of FB over a platform like Parfumo. Fast Food/Takeaway with huge picture icon buttons vs. (I wouldn't say Slow Food, but) having a nice lunch course chosen from a menu card, while seated at a window overlooking the river.
The other point which certainly isn't new but I'd mention again would be the question of responsibility and commitment. The larger the number of anonymous people that can just open an account as many as wished, delete and create new ones without any control (IP etc.), the more will be enticed to just 'register' for throwing in some remarks without taking responsibility. In this regard, platforms like Parfumo and Basenotes seem to have a strict rule, whereas some other openly allows multiple accounts under unreal identities. The latter would boast huge daily access, but at the cost of integrity and quality.

I cannot think what should be changed about Parfumo to become even more 'compatible' with the FB population. Perhaps I regard the matter as the difference between people that love reading books in quiet corners and those that feel their concentration fade away after 3 lines and never could finish one book in their life (like my great-aunt says about herself).
Btw, Merry Christmas!
6 years ago
Thank you for your kind and thoughtful reply, dear Anessa! And a merry Christmas to you too! Smile

Some food for thought, your bon-vivant analogy (pun intended Wink).

Although a firm believer in inevitable change, I am most certainly not trying to advocate conformity with FB. Dreadful prospect if Parfumo were to loose its wonderful unique characteristic, ready to be assimilated by the Borg collective. I'd expect that kind of convergence to make this platform redundant, sooner or later, not preserve it.

However, if Parfumo is to stay relevant user behaviour needs to be taken into consideration. And what can be observed is little forum activity at .net. Hence my passage on editorial content, i.e., feature articles, and the concluding question of conception.
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