Hi everyone!

I have a site on MSN groups. I had decided to relocate the group somewhere else for various reasons. It is now being built as a subdomain to my business site.

Earlier in May, I tried a "free hosting" service and Xoops...but that was a pain in the butt. lol. Some checked it out and that was about it. I am now re-creating the site as a subdomain to my business site and using PHPNuke. The only ads that will be there, are the ones I put there--advertisers will now be coordinated with the site content and no more "dating" ads glaring at us from the top of the page.

The members from the original group are not migrating and worse they seem disinterested.....how can I get them to migrate to the new site? What things can I tell them...like benefits they can expect, or things that they will be able to do now that they couldn't do there on MSN? Has anyone gone thru this type of situation before? What would you do? I am sick of being tied to MSN. How can I get them to realize that the move is a great thing? How can I get them to understand that once they try the new setup they'll like it? Any ideas?

I am so frustratred by all this....of course, my managers are "stuck in their ways" and that isn't helping at all either.

The site is for visual artists of all mediums ...beginers to professional.

Are the members afraid of change?

Thanks for listening, I am about ready to forget the whole dang thing.

Shilo

members are often afraid to move, well not afraid exactly - it's usually more that they've built up a presence on a particular site and that they think they'll have to start all over again, being a newbie (hate that word) for want of a better word. It's not all that easy to get them to move, as you say. I think the best you can do is run the two sites alongside each other for a bit and keep linking to your new site from your old site, telling your members what you've been doing. It's also a very good idea to get them involved in the process of building the new site - ask them for suggestions, let them vote on how the new site should be run so that they become a part of the new site. You can give the members an incentive to go to your new site like a games module with a high score table. There's certainly no point in you trying to force them over there, just try and make them part of it and build a great site, perhaps one that has a similar look and feel to the original, but with extras; if it's good enough you'll get new members that you haven't even met yet, the old members will probably migrate across slowly if you're lucky. It's hard to say much more without knowing what the site is about, hope that helps a bit.

P.S. Wait till your new site has a google page rank from the links you put to it from the old site, then get plenty of related link partners to gain a steady flow of visitors.

Hi Astroman
Thank you very much for responding. You have some really good ideas there that I will put into use.

have a great weekend
Shilo