Update: The introductory offer ends at 1pm (Eastern US time) on Monday 16 November.
A number of people have been asking how ProBlogger.com (the new community section of ProBlogger) has been going since we launched a month ago – so today I thought I’d give a bit of an update – including giving some news on the new price which will go live 1 week from today..
Some stats:
- As things currently stand we have 2080 paying members.
- In the first month the forum has had 1,400+ threads of conversation started and 15,000+ actual posts.
- Less than 1% of those who registered for the first month decided not to renew their subscription.
- The section with the most new threads in the first month was the ‘Critique’ section where members post a link to their blog or something that they’ve done and ask for others to review it.
- The section with the most posts/responses (apart from the ‘general chit chat’ area) is the ‘blog promotion/finding readers’ section.
Here’s a quick screen grab of the different areas (taken a few days back pretty late at night US time so not a lot of people in the forum at the time).
As you can see the topics being discussed are far reaching and in most areas there is a fair bit of discussion. The new(ish) Tutorials area is an area I’d like to see a bit more action in and I’m going to recruit a few experts in different fields of blogging to contribute some tutorials here in the coming months.
We’ve passed the point where most members have had the chance to stop their subscription if they choose to. As mentioned above we’ve had just under 1% of people decide to leave. While I’d love everyone to stay it’s not feasible to expect that the site will suit every need.
We did have a few issues with the subscription renewals at the end of the month which caused some confusion but along with a few other growing pains the first month of ProBlogger.com has been well worthwhile and I’m getting a lot of really great feedback from members.
As with all membership sites it is those who are throwing themselves into it most who seem to be getting the most out of it.
The Price Rises in One Week from Today
Now that we’ve achieved the 2000 member mark and retained that amount of members we’re moving towards ending the introductory price of $1.95 a month. Anyone who has signed up at this price already (and who signs up in the next week) and stays a member is locked in at this level.
However in a week’s time we’ll be putting the price up to $5.95 a month for new members. This gives everyone a chance to get in at the introductory price – so if you’re thinking of joining – now’s the time to get locked in at $1.95.
$5.95 is a price that we still feel is accessible to many but will enable us to make the site sustainable.
You have one week to get in at this price before we raise it – your time starts….. now.
New Feature – Social Groups
Now that we’re at 2000 members we’re starting to see enough bloggers in different niches to make the collaboration area of the blog more and more useful as there are now little ‘clusters’ of bloggers in different topics.
To help with this collaboration we’ll be adding the ‘social groups’ feature in the coming week. This will enable bloggers to group themselves a little more and set up areas to discuss common interests.
I foresee this ‘social groups’ feature to be used in a number of ways:
- Niche Based Groups – for example the gadget bloggers might find it useful to set up an area where they can all come together to work together, discuss their niche, ask for and offer help to each other. Groups for Mommy Bloggers, Photography Bloggers, Sports Bloggers…. etc
- Location Based Groups – for bloggers from a particular city, region, state, country who are interested in talking about issues of their part of the world.
- Platform Based Groups – for bloggers who want to talk about a particular blogging platform or tool. I could foresee a group for WordPress bloggers, for Joomla bloggers, for Blogger.com bloggers….
Really the way that these groups can be used is only going to be limited to the imagination of members. I hope that they provide bloggers with the ability to find others like them but also discuss some of the more obscure topics that might not be relevant to everyone.
At first we’ll be choosing the topics for these groups but would like to soon open it up for anyone to start one.
New Feature – Weekly Chats
We will also be adding a weekly chat session for members in the coming couple of weeks. This will not go live until after the price rise but will give members the opportunity to interact live with one another on a weekly basis in a chat room – the hope is that we’ll nominate a topic each week to focus the chat around, do a little quick teaching at the start and then open it up for discussion.
Other Benefits
Discounts – The 50% off the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog offer has been used by many of our members. Getting $9.98 off the workbook effectively gives those members 5 months free membership.
I’ll be extending this offer indefinitely for ProBlogger.com members and also offering discounts on future ProBlogger resources (expect to see another one released in the next 2-3 months with more to follow).
I’m also talking to a number of blogging related companies about them coming into the forums to offer special discounts on their products to members. More on this in the coming weeks.
Guest Experts – as mentioned above – I want to beef up the ‘tutorials’ area of the forum by bringing in some special guests to provide some teaching around different topics. This will not be a formal curriculum or syllabus but rather regular input from people with experience in different areas of blogging and the opportunity to pick their brains a little.
