How do I encourage people to engage in a community that is not Facebook?

Question

I have seen a couple of instances of strong web communities (one on ning, one on heaven-knows-what forum software) stagnate and die because everyone is reinventing the wheel with groups on Facebook.

The Facebook version is much less serviceable, primarily because the content is so ephemeral, and not searchable, but there are also issues with ownership of content.

The community that I am trying to foster (on Drupal + CiviCRM) is at an even greater disadvantage because in eight years it has never reached a high level of engagement in a non-technical sector.

Answer 1

Depending on your niche, your site can be more beneficial than Facebook just by providing a search function. Couple that with articles (e.g. reviews, white papers) describing your niche, and providing unique content (photo gallery, contests, polls, etc.) can engage viewers and increase registrations. There is no SEO solution to cure Facebook ills, it takes good content, and getting the word out about your good content. Some sites will advertise on Facebook to promote their message board or forum content, but I haven't seen that work very well. You may get a lot of likes to your Facebook page, but I've yet to see it improve a forum's registration numbers.