[ATSF3751]

Hey Everyone,

So I have been thinking of starting an Official Open Rails Facebook page to try and get more interest in Open Rails and wanted to see what others thought of this idea? YES I have looked up Open Rails in Facebook and there are already a few pages out there but no Official page to let others know of updates, share progress, routes, photos, share ideas and other aspects that come along with Open Rails.

Just wanted to post on here and see what others thought before I went ahead and made a page! Oops I just realized I spelled Official wrong in the title of the post.

Brandon

[Weter]

Hello.
This sounds very good.
Alas, I will not be able to see it and help You.
It's nowadays tendency - to rely on social media for promotion of needed things - because auditory is huge, and habits are strong.
So, Good Luck with that. I believe, that would be useful for Yourself as well.

[trainzman]

that my facebook account guys

[pwillard]

I've pretty much severed my ties with social media as much as possible so I'm not a fan.

But... it might be a way to help out for those that use it.

[R H Steele]

ATSF3751, on 10 December 2023 - 09:56 AM, said:

Hey Everyone,

So I have been thinking of starting an Official Open Rails Facebook page to try and get more interest in Open Rails and wanted to see what others thought of this idea? YES I have looked up Open Rails in Facebook and there are already a few pages out there but no Official page to let others know of updates, share progress, routes, photos, share ideas and other aspects that come along with Open Rails.

Just wanted to post on here and see what others thought before I went ahead and made a page! Oops I just realized I spelled Official wrong in the title of the post.

Brandon

"Official" ???? Appreciate your boundless enthusiasm --- but the word presumptuous comes to mind. Joint effort with the Development Team would be appropriate....get their feedback on the idea.

[P Escue]

I should start by saying that I don't like social media for many reasons and only use it if I have no choice.

First, this needs to be run by the Open Rails people if they want to and/or have the time to do social media. This can be a full-time job because social media lives on new content. If they decide to do social media, they must ask who they will target. Facebook may not be the answer for the group you want to go for.

We do have some people who are promoting Open Rails. Back in July of 2022, a young man did a review of Open Rails on YouTube that was favorable.

OR Review

Since its release, it has had over 10,500 views and is still being viewed. Another gentleman reviewed Train Simulation’s new SP Shasta Route about a month ago.

SP Shasta Review

So far, it has had almost 3,000 views.

Since the first one was released in 2022 and had so many views, has Open Rails seen an increase in downloads? If so, then we are getting some interest generated.

Just remember that doing social media will require much work, and should it go into that or into development?

Phil

[ATSF3751]

I myself have mixed feelings about it as well and yes I have been in contact with some or the ORMT about the subject and I am only trying to find ways to draw more people into Open Rails. That being said no one has started an official page and I have no intention of starting one unless we get enough support for one. That is the reason I started this forum. Seeing that most of the community on here and Trainsim are in there 60-80 range in age I am only trying to come up with ways to get younger people to find out about Open Rails.

Yes one of my friends is the one that did the Youtube review on the Shasta Route and it has gotten really good reviews! I have reached out to him about possibly doing more and he may in the future but not any time soon!

Brandon

[Jovet]

For the record, that Shasta route review (which I haven't even watched most of) gave me a good kick in the complacency to buy several TrainSimulations addons just to give them some financial support for producing OR content. I bought more during the Black Friday sale. I'm a pretty happy customer, too!

[ATSF3751]

Train Simulations is a wonderful asset to Open Rails and I hope it stays that way! Now if we could get a few other sites like Train Simulations to back Open Rails maybe that is what we would need to get Open Rails out there. Maybe Open Rails doesn't need an official Facebook page but it does need to get out there more.

One thing that Open Rails is lacking is the fact that it is not even mentioned when I look up Train Simulators on Google. I just happened to look up the best Train Simulators on Google and Open Rails was not even mentioned. I had to type in Open Rails for anything to even come up about it. I guess this is what I should be bringing up instead of a Facebook page. The issue I see is you need to know about Open Rails to find anything about it. TRAINZ, TSW and Train Simulator 20xx are already widely known throughout the Rail Simulator community but when it comes to Open Rails it is hard to find if you do not know about it.

I feel we can not just rely on TrainSim and Elvastower alone any more if we want to get more people involved and have more find out about Open Rails. Yes they are fantastic assets to Open Rails but they can only go so far when it comes to getting Open Rails out there and out to the public.

Open Rails is a fantastic simulator and I am only trying to help Open Rails branch out so we can get more to learn what it is all about and not trying to offend or put down Open Rails, it's management team or coders in any way with some of these post just to make that clear. It is a far cry from the MSTS Days and I think the ones involved are doing a fantastic job and keep pushing forward to make Open Rails even better for the future! I know I have put a few post up lately that have either offended or upset some people on here and TrainSim and I am sorry as I know it is hard to some times read people online. I am only trying to look out for Open Rails and its future and hope others can understand where I am coming from.

Brandon

[Jovet]

ATSF3751, on 10 December 2023 - 07:09 PM, said:

One thing that Open Rails is lacking is the fact that it is not even mentioned when I look up Train Simulators on Google. I just happened to look up the best Train Simulators on Google and Open Rails was not even mentioned. I had to type in Open Rails for anything to even come up about it.

I'm not an expert on SEO (Search Engine Optimization), but it's my understanding that one of the largest factors Google uses in determining search relevance and result ranking order is the number external sites linking to a given website. The more links leading to a particular page or resource, the quicker it will be found in search results. There is also meta data that can be put into a website's page headers to ensure various search keywords are picked up when spiders crawl the website.