Thank you for requesting a Forum Promotion review. You will have your review completed in 48 hours or less. If you have any questions regarding your review, feel free to ask me. While you are waiting on your review, why don't you take a look around the forum? After your review is finished, please rate your reviewer on how they did here.
Thank you for using the Forum Promotion Review Service, Review Team
Strengths:
I am pretty sure you are surprised; I was surprised as well for writing this, but I have to be honest and this is how it goes. After thinking it over and over again, I couldn't seem to find any specific strength I can mention and explore in this section. It's not that your forum does not have any strength at all. To me, the current positive traits you have do not stand out too much for me to write and elaborate. For example, the small but stable activity since opening which earn you the current milestone of 500 posts. It's a wonderful fact, but looking deeper there are not many on-topic posts, and it's mainly by you; I rarely see other (regular) members joining you in the discussions or starting new threads.
Weaknesses:
Current Design/Theme
Too much. That is unfortunately the impression I had when I first saw the index page of your forum. I appreciate your effort in trying to celebrate Christmas, but to me the design is too crowded that it is no longer interesting, but distracting. Starting with the header, which is very crowded with your huge banner, the decoration of Christmas lamps and the snowman, and the falling snow and plants. From the header, some of the decorations are blocking the banner so it becomes hard to see the background. I also feel the banner itself doesn't really blend well together. Maybe one best screenshot themed in Christmas with your forum title/tagline works better than the current combination. The falling items are blocking my view of the forum sections, it's a little annoying, personally speaking. Next is the navigation menu, which I could barely notice that it's a navigation menu unless I look really close to it. As a guest I may not need the navigation menu much, but as a member I'll need it to access my private messages, search function, and so on. And with that size I imagine it'll be way too hard to move around nicely. For the body of the forum itself, how should I say it... The color combination doesn't hurt my eyes, but not too comfortable either. Perhaps because such combination is not common in forums. But the texts are all readable so it's good. As for category/forum icons they obviously don't go well with your current theme as it belongs to another theme, so change them with something more Christmas which still related to the series your forum is dedicated to. That will make it more interesting.
Layout/Organization
Here comes the organization of your forum. It's around the right number, but it's exploited in a way which can be improved, in my opinion. Looking at your on-topic sections, it is big but in not-so-good organization. First example is the "Fliming" forum. I assume that can be considered as news, so both sections can be combined and you can have a more crowded and active forum for discussion. Another example is the "Observings" forum. Your description says "Have you found something during an episode that needs sharing?" Now, wouldn't that fall under the "Episodes" section? Perhaps you want to talk about specific episode there, instead of some scenes. You can turn "Observings" into a sub-forum of "Episodes". Next, what do you mean by "Memorabilia"? The description of the forum does not make it any clearer, and no content inside as an example of what you mean. Perhaps it can be condensed and merged with other forums? You expand it too big at the cost of other generally popular forums are empty. Not only in on-topic category, but the off-topic ones too. It is always better to start small but focused first before expanding the content based on the community needs. I believe your forum and content will be more solid this way. Small doesn't necessarily means bad.
No Specific Content
When I first heard the forum name, I was unsure what it was about. Upon visiting I noticed that it's a forum dedicated to a certain TV series. As a fan of some TV series and music, I believe what fans usually expect to see when visiting a fan forum is to get all latest info and fun details about what they like. And that is what you lack at the moment, in my opinion. Take for example, the 'The Latest News' section is currently empty. Most posts are concentrated in off-topic sections with less than 25% of total posts located at the on-topic sections. This doesn't sound too good. Taking another example is the "Episodes" section. In my understanding, it's a place to discuss specific episode, for example "Season 1 Episode 3". But I haven't seen anything like that. It's more a general discussion area for all episodes of the series. That makes the discussion not focused. You need to start some threads, giving examples of what members can do and discuss around the forum, for them to join in the talk too and to make the activity better.
Final Remarks:
The challenge to running a specific fan base community is not an easy work at all, no matter how popular the idol is. I know how it feels since I used to have a similar forum. Even more since after I browsed around Google, the series is completed years ago, making news about it perhaps harder to be found. The key is to find your target audience, i.e. to find where fans of the series like to gather, and get yourself known there. Keep on adding new content, find possible staff members who can help with news and discussion ideas, and work on the content. We cannot ignore design for content or vice versa, though. So it's a hard work in a long run. The owner and staff member(s) should display maximum effort in building content in the first place; members and posts don't come automatically. Don't give up easily, the forum is still young so there are still chances to improve on it. Good luck!
After reading your review, please click here to rate your review
Cash Deducted!
Thank you for using the Forum Promotion Review Service. Your FP Cash has been deducted, and payment for this service has been received. If you would like to give feedback on our services after reading your review, you may do so by clicking here! You can make a new review request again on 29 December 2013.