Hello, and welcome to the weekly member community interviews. This week, we are interviewing @Shortie who currently does an amazing job helping us with moderation duties over at our forum at Bizdustry. She owns Promotion Addicts, but without giving too many spoilers, shall we dive into the FIRST member community interview? If you are interested and would like to be interviewed, please raise a support ticket or email info@bizdustry.com for further information.
Our weekly member community interviews are to "recognise" the efforts of small website and business owners, who will not be afraid to help others. At Bizdustry, we believe in giving back so we hope you enjoy reading this series! Many thanks to @Shortie for answering my questions.
Alexander, 22, Bizdustry.com Owner states "It was a pleasure doing this interview with @Shortie, a fellow community owner as-well as a much loved team member on Bizdustry. I am sure, just like me you have learned quite a bit from her in this interview alone. @The Hulk, be aware, you will be on the hotspot next week when I receive your answers. Thank you for reading, we hope you will continue reading these interviews every week that they are published. Feel free to comment below on this interview and ask @Shortie any further questions on anything that has been mentioned."
Our weekly member community interviews are to "recognise" the efforts of small website and business owners, who will not be afraid to help others. At Bizdustry, we believe in giving back so we hope you enjoy reading this series! Many thanks to @Shortie for answering my questions.
1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself, including your skills and what you do for a living?
Hi there, I am Shortie and I am a mother to 4 children, a freelance writer, and a video game content creator. I write content for blogs, forums, and websites and also create video game content as well for a living.2. Can you sum up the purpose of your community in one sentence?
I can, the purpose of my community is to not only help webmasters promote their websites but to also help freelancers, content creators, and also live streamers promote their services and content.3. Who are your competitors & what makes you stand out?
As much as I would like to say I do not like to have competitors, I know in the forum world and also in the internet world, this is always the case and I know that I do have competitors. I would have to say that my biggest competitors are other promotion forums. In terms of what makes us stand out from my competitors, I believe it is the fact that we not only help webmasters promote their websites, forums, and blogs but we also help freelancers and also content creators, and live streamers promote their services and content.4. How is your online community unique?
I would like to say that my online community is unique because we have a range of different people on our forum who all have different interests and different things to promote.5. How do you deal with abusive posts/members?
When it comes to abusive members, we take a look at the abuse to see how severe it is and we deal with it accordingly. Abuse that is uncalled for and unforgivable is always greeted with a permanent ban on the forum. Any kind of abuse, bullying, or discrimination is not tolerated on Promotion Addicts. Abusive posts are also dealt with in the same way, depending on the severity of the abuse, the posts will be deleted and the member in question who posted the abuse will be dealt with by staff accordingly.6. How do you recruit valuable moderators and how will you retain them?
At the moment we are in the process of recruiting staff members and moderators for the forum. We are looking for individuals who are passionate about the forum and want to help the community thrive with not only activity but also in terms of keeping the forum free from spam and abuse.7. Is your online community fun?
I would definitely say so. We are not a community that doesn't enjoy having fun and chatting about the things that we love, we encourage members to be themselves, discuss what interests them, and have fun.8. What proportion of your members are active and why?
I would say that just less than half of our members are active at the moment. The reason for this is that we are slowly building up the forum still and actively promoting it as best we can. We hope in time we will have a thriving community that continues to grow.9. What are the most popular topics in your online community?
The most popular topics in my online community are promotion topics, webmaster topics and also money making topics, and cryptocurrency topics. We also have topics of a general nature as well that are quite popular.10. What subjects raise the most passion in your online community?
I would say that promotion, webmaster and money making are the subjects that raise the most passion at the moment in my online community.11. Who are your most important members?
At Promotion Addicts, we would not say that we have important members as we treat everyone equally but we would say that those who are active, and have a passion for what our forum is about are the important ones in our community.12. Who are your most influential members?
Our most influential members are definitely those who have a passion for what our forum is about and who are active in both helping others on the forum as well as sharing their own experiences and tips.13. Do your members feel welcome when they join?
We allow our new members to introduce themselves when they are ready and we ensure that we welcome them by replying to the thread they create welcoming them. We are looking into getting a welcome PM set up as well which we feel will help in introducing them and also giving them tips to help them.14. Do your members feel valued?
The members have praised the forum and how friendly both members are staff are on the forum and we feel because of this feedback, the members do feel valued.15. Do your members know your name?
My members at the moment only know me by my username, Shortie but some who I knew back when I had another forum may know me by my first name. I would not be against sharing my real first name.16. Do your members know how to contact you?
Yes, my members do know how to make contact with me. We not only have a contact us option on Promotion Addicts but I also have my PMs open and I also offer to give my email address for another contact option if needed.17. Do your members trust you?
I would say that my members do trust me and I do not have any reason to believe at this time that there are members that do not trust me or my staff.18. Are you developing relationships away from your site to benefit your community?
I try to develop relationships away from my site on other forums and also on social media as well when possible.19. What external links to your community bring you the most active members?
I would say that external links on other forums I am active on bring me the most active members.20. Is running a online community a hobby or a full-time job? If it's a hobby, can you explain whether you have any intentions to monetize your content and if so, how do you plan on doing so?
At the moment it is a hobby but I would like to make it my job if it were possible. At the moment even though it is a hobby, we do monetize with Google Adsense and also A-Ads and we also offer user upgrades with incentives for those who want to support Promotion Addicts.21. How does social media affect your branding?
Social media has helped me reach a wider audience and also helped me promote my brand. I would like to get a better social media presence in time.22. What is the most difficult decision you've made?
I would say the most difficult decision I have made is having to cut people off in terms of my forum due to feeling I could trust them and then finding out they were not as honest as I thought they were.23. Do you plan on selling any merchandise, or otherwise developing any "partnerships"?
At the moment we are not selling any kind of merchandise but I would like to at a later date when I feel the time is right. In terms of partnerships, as a video game content creator, I do have some affiliation with some companies and I also have some partnerships as well which I feel will help.24. How would you describe your management style, is it more externally focused or very hands on?
I would say that my management style is externally focused but can be very hands-on if it needs to be.25. How did you come up with your forum name?
Coming up with the name of my forum was quite easy and a no-brainer. From 2009 - 2017 I ran a general discussion called Chat Addicts and it became quite an active forum. Unfortunately, in 2017 the hosting costs became too much and I made the tough decision to close Chat Addicts. Promotion Addicts seemed like a fitting name after Chat Addicts.26. Would you ever consider selling your forum or are you in it "for the marathon"?
I am definitely in it for the long run and would not consider selling my forum.27. Most forums are lacking activity due to social media evolving over the years. How are you overcoming this?
You can definitely tell that forums are lacking activity and that over the years, social media has meant that forums are not as popular as they used to be. As much as my forum is not growing the same way a forum did 10 years ago that I owned, I do know that there are still people out there that are passionate about forums and still enjoy using forums. Targeting these people is something I do to help overcome the lack of activity due to social media.28. How do you market (advertise) your forum?
I market and advertise my forum by ensuring that I advertise exactly what our forum offers and also how it can help webmasters, freelancers, and also content creators promote their content and sites which in turn, can bring more activity and also more eyes to their content and services.29. Anything else you'd like to mention?
Not at this timeAlexander, 22, Bizdustry.com Owner states "It was a pleasure doing this interview with @Shortie, a fellow community owner as-well as a much loved team member on Bizdustry. I am sure, just like me you have learned quite a bit from her in this interview alone. @The Hulk, be aware, you will be on the hotspot next week when I receive your answers. Thank you for reading, we hope you will continue reading these interviews every week that they are published. Feel free to comment below on this interview and ask @Shortie any further questions on anything that has been mentioned."
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