Fansites and encouraging interaction

[rigelatin]

I'd like to hear some opinions, experiences, and ideas on the topic of encouraging interaction with our fansites and collectives.

Long ago, making a fansite was practically a way of saying "contact me and let's chat about the subject" - sometimes even to the point that we'd need to make FAQs to stop a certain question from being sent over and over again! - but over the years internet habits have very much changed, and now I'm finding myself in the opposite position: I put so much effort writing fansites, I make a properly tagged post on social media to inform of new and updated content, and people simply don't reply. Don't interact. Don't know if they even read. If there is any interaction, it's usually just a like on the update post, which, thank you, but I didn't put all this effort editing a whole essay and maintaining a whole site just to be told "okay". I want to have conversation!

So I realize that there must be a disconnect of some sort, either in my fansite formats or in how I advertise the updates or in social media habits themselves or... My personal goal with my participation to the Our Kingdoms Eternal event is to address this disconnect and try to bridge it - try to make it evident and clear on my collective and fansites that I'm not just making pages to be read passively, I'm looking for connection and interaction.

So far these are my ideas for what might help. Please add your own, and your experiences with these also!

• Guestbook. I don't have one yet, but it seems like a good thing to encourage at least making one's presence known.


• Proper contact page with fillable form. I also don't have one, just my email freely dropped here or there. But at this point just telling people "send me an email" is no longer really an expectable behavior for light conversation, I don't think...


• Being generally less polished, actually, to hopefully make people less intimidated. I have no data, but I wonder how much that impacts it.


• I was amused by the clap button on the event website and, yeah, thinking about it - they used to be common back in the late 2000s, and they were a nice way of just recording that a visit occurred. I think I want one. (Any suggestion on scripts, or should I code it myself?)


• Generally being more clear on both fansites and update posts that yes, do contact me please.


• In the new collective layout I'm working on, I'm adding little... what can I call them? Interactable quizzes? Tiny text adventures? relevant to what I'm writing. This is very silly, but I hope it can get the visitor in the mood of interactivity, and then maybe later these silly bonuses could spark conversation when I direct them to the guestbook...

Tell me your thoughts!

Comments

[larissa]

I'm right there with you on the lack of interaction on social media, sob. I think there are a lot of reasons for it (fansites as fanwork is so much less common now that fans don't know how to interact with it) but as a creator who wants feedback, it's a bit depressing.

That said, I think a guestbook and a contact form will help a lot. I want to convert my contact page into a form for the same reason — anything that makes it less effort for the visitor to get in touch is a good thing, I think. I do get occasional comments in my guestbook — a lot of people have said that my FFXIII treasure checklist has helped them out, which makes me happy to hear. (But I also want to hear about the substantive content I have, which is less common.)

It's tough out here, honestly. I don't think there's a single answer of how to get visitors to interact more, but it's a worthwhile goal for sure. I think approachability is an important part of it, though perhaps the most difficult to achieve.

[rigelatin]

Thank you for sharing your experiences. In particular

(fansites as fanwork is so much less common now that fans don't know how to interact with it)

...I think you've nailed an important aspect of it. Flashing through my head are so many recent instances of people sending messages regarding fansites and straight out saying they don't know what type of thing they just read ("your blog on [character]" and "your personal scrapbook on [character]" come to mind to torment me).

Also crusty old curmudgeon moment, but I get the sense that younger folks especially are more invested in labels and definitions of types of media they interact with and are often outright uncomfortable with what does not fit within their known boxes (not fansites but: recently at a convention a teenager came to my table and asked me "what is this? what is your art style called?". I fortunately had the quickness of wit to immediately answer "it's called mine!", but the interaction will haunt me anyway...).

So within the limits of what I can do without choking myself into definitions and such... has perhaps the time come to put on fansites (and also on social media update posts) a pre-emptive explanation of what even is this site and what does it want with the reader? Hmm.