Like the forum? Please tell your friends...

[bob]

Once again, I'd like to welcome all of the new members we're getting. It's great to see so many new folks, and to see folks that we know from various other forums showing up here.

I appreciate the fact that folks are inviting their friends to join, and I encourage everyone to keep doing that. The forum is still pretty small, though it's quite active. The more members we have, the more active the place will be, and that's better for everyone!

The best way to grow the forum is by word of mouth and personal reccommendations. Somebody is far more likely to join if they hear about the place from somebody they know. So please keep telling anyone you know that's interested in gardening to come and join the forum! They'll be glad they did.

 

[Jade]

I have been telling all of my gardening friends to join us. I was so frustrated witGh GH that I stopped going there, I think that I joined 3 times before I gave up. I am so happy that things have gone so smoothly here. I loved the old GG and am so happy to see lots of my old horticultural pals here again.
Keep up the good work.
I have checked out several of the advertisers and am happy to see the low prices.
Good job.

 

[Mainegal]

I'm still passing the word around Bob. Trying to get some more gardeners from Maine to join and not having much luck. I'll put it on my freecycle community if they will let me. I posted a msg, now to see if it gets approved. I hope so as there is so much knowledge here on just about every subject from starting the seeds to canning the harvest.

 

[Spider_Lily]

I have been telling everyone about this site.

 

[bob]

Thanks Laurie. You've definitely done your part.

If everyone had invited as many folks as you did, we'd have well over 1,000 members by now I'm guessing. If folks aren't interested that's fine, not everyone enjoys online forums.

We're also growing quite quickly, and we've got a lot of very active members. That's great, and I'm happy with how things are working so far. However, we still need to encourage more folks to join, and to spread the word. Ideally I'd like to see a lot more members, that will help the niche categories grow and become active.

Oh, one more suggestion. If you have a website, even if it's just your personal site, add a link to the forum. That will help our Google rank grow and improve.

Thanks,
Bob

 

[Dale]

I am trying to do my part, several have joined at my invitation.

 

[Mainegal]

Thanks Bob and you are very welcome this is my site too isn't it? Got to do what I can to bring up the membership. No thanks are needed
They posted it, I forwarded the email that I posted to you. Praying that we will get some new members from it and they will bring along friends and family.

 

[bob]

There's a fancy new term for this stuff, it's called "viral marketing" since it can spread like a virus (a good one in this case).

Imagine if every member had two more people join, then those two brough two more, then... OK, obviously you quickly exceed the population of the planet if you go down that line very far, but if you have realistic expectations, having members encourage others to join is the best method of growing an online community.

Of course, the only way to do that is have the forum members like the forum enough that they'll tell their friends. It can just as easily work in reverse, since if they don't like it, they'll still tell their friends. So you have to work hard to keep the members happy, which is what we try and do!

 

[Kya D]

I am telling ALL of my gardening friends.

 

[plantlover]

I've added the link to my writer's profile. Anyone who checks out my articles will see the link. When someone visits this site or registers, are you able to determine how they got here -- or where the link that brought them here was posted?

 

[Kya D]

What a great idea Ms. Susan!!!!!!!!!

 

[bob]

There is an optional entry where they can say who referred them.

Since most folks don't know what that means, and you have to spell the user name exactly right for it to work, I don't pay much attention.

 

[levi murphy]

Sadly not all my gardening friends understand the gains of this forum, I'll keep telling them till they join.

 

[Randy]

I would like to see my brother and brother-in-law get on here, but both of them say they are too busy.

 

[Spider_Lily]

I just went to quick link to see who was online.We have twentyfour guest visiting.Come on everyone no need to be a lurker.Come join our GF family.
Promise we don't bite......

 

[RonsGarden]

A lot of those 'lurkers' are usually web crawlers from various search engines!

 

[Spider_Lily]

Ohhhh.... well maybe a few of them are really interested in gardening.

 

[GardenBear1]

I was on the old GG when it started to have some problems so I stopped going there and went to 2 or3 sites but they were not the same friendly people I knew from the old site, then Mainegal told me about Garden forum and there lots of the old group there I had to check it out, its like being home again, most of my friends think I'm a little crazy when I take about who did this in there garden or some one has a new green house to me it's like talking about family.
Many thanks to Bob, Mainegal and all the other that make this place home.
I've been telling all my friends to get in here, but I hear I'm to busy or I really don't know that much about garden don't want to sound silly, but I think we all felt that way when we first started out in gardening on line, I'll keep after them and some day they will join

 

[Gloria]

Bear, I get the same response from my friends. I have always grown vegetables but didn't do very much with flowers till I joined GH, Same as with GG, there were problems and it wasn't a good place to go anymore. I'm sooo glad Bob gave us a new home. I would be lost with out my Gardenforums..

 

[RonsGarden]

You and me both!
I pop in several times a day and if I'm too busy with other things I suffer from withdrawals!