Dinosaur Of The Stamp Collecting Community, Trying To Come Out My Cave.

I am looking for ways to attract new collectors to take up our hobby.
Since many of us collectors are older (from age), we should step out of our dinosaur caves and try to explore what excites young people and how to entice them to take up the stamp collecting hobby.
I already know from this forum how difficult this task will be. My objective is to try to pull them into collecting Revenues, specifically Thailand revenues, a nearly impossible mountain to climb.

So, I talked with my young family members.
- young people want to belong to a group, a community of peers
-Young people do not want to read books or articles, they want to chat on social media
-Young people have limited finances and use smart applications on their phones to pay for things.

So, coming out of my cave has 2 major steps;
1. Before looking for young people, I should build a community of existing collectors, including dormant collectors. In the past 2 weeks, I had my son build a website for me. This includes a blog which is easy to manage compared to a traditional website and I forced myself to become high tech and operate a blog.
A blog is interactive so you can communicate with the readers.
In order to attract readers to my blog I posted my 300 page Thai revenue handbook edition 2019 on the website, freely accessible!
The website is now active;
2. Get a presence on social media, something I do not have at all today. I am preparing for later this year to start a presence, first on Facebook starting mixed in Thai and English. I will try to create a forum, Thai revenue stamp related. There will be links to my website. The forum is mostly chat with easy Thai revenue subjects. I will also sell for low prices my many low value Thai revenue duplicates, just to get people started. This step 2 is still fomenting in my brain.

So, what are the results of having my website live for 7 days? Luckily my webhosting company has lots of analytical tools.
At this moment I got 120 site visits, with 75 unique visitors.
Of these visitors 50% is Thai. 19 people registered on the website. Of the 19 people who registered, 6 I did not know before.

Because of the many Thai visitors, I (my son) will install a Multilanguage Google translate module on my website so it will become more accessible for Thai collectors.

I like to invite the SCF members to visit my website, register at the home page and join and learn to travel the difficult road I have chosen.
Thanks


*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

Great!


So... why on earth would you try to attract new people with this, instead of an area with easy-to-find material and readily available information?

Really? It is admirable to try to get new collectors into the hobby regardless of their age. However, most of my many friends in philately have minimal overlap with my own collecting specialties. Each found the hobby and their own specialty through different channels at different times in their lives.
Consider instead just exposing potential collectors to the broad philatelic fields of domestic vs foreign stamps, postage vs revenues, stamps vs postal history, topicals, etc See what clicks, then feed that specific interest. Nothing will turn them off faster than being told what they have to collect.

I don't think we'll ever attract significant numbers of young people until philately gets out of the dark ages entirely. There are still a not-insignificant number of dealers in American Philatelist who will only do business through the mail. They have no web presence, they don't even have email, I have no idea how the hell they stay in business, but the second I see one of them, I skip over them for someone living in the 21st century. I'm not even young and I refuse to do business with dinosaurs.If I won't do it, you can be sure that people half my age won't.

As a millennial (40), I can guarantee that the chief obstacle for anyone my age or younger is financial. It's the reason I go for the used stamps over mint if they're available, and cringed when I had to pay $15 for a hard to find Eva Perón stamp.

I know that I'll never have a complete Argentina collection, but I'm ok with that. I'm in this for fun, not as an investment. The stamps I collect may not be of any great value, but I enjoy them.

I'm 25 and when I tell my friends about my efforts collecting and selling stamps they're fascinated. I've made a few into passing fans, one even went with me to Westpex a couple years ago. Keeping them interested is the hard part. Essentially it's about money and access. ebay gives access but stuff costs money and there's no community. Local shows are free to attend and offer community, but are difficult to access due to the need to know where and when they are far in advance. I have yet to turn someone into a real collector coming to shows regularly. Also, you can't bunch us all up saying none of us like to read. I like stamps for how they look more than their minute history. I don't really care what inspired a certain stamp to be made (I would be interested if I found out, but I wouldn't seek out the information), I just care how it looks.

Ask me anything about being a young person in stamps, I'll happily answer

jossanders, congratulations on all of the work you've put in to create your website, your book, everything! I rarely look outside of US material, but I was attracted to the section on snuff stamps because I'm into US tobacco taxpaids, and spent a little time there looking for corollaries. Anyway, I think one of the members of my stamp club specializes in Thailand, so I'll send a link to the members and maybe you'll get a new member.

As John Becker wrote, "It is admirable to try to get new collectors into the hobby..." Full stop. Yes, the topic you're looking to attract an audience is narrow. But so what? I can tell you from experience that building websites based on narrow philatelic topics can be very rewarding. It may take time, but your patience may be nicely rewarded, even if it's from a core group of a small number of people.

OBB wrote "Also, you can't bunch us all up saying none of us like to read." This is a persistent stereotype and yours is the first myth-busting comment I've read to date. So thanks for sharing that.

If asked, those would have been my exact words as a 12-year-old with a pile of stamps and an album as I sat at home sick for six months. Honestly, that was what appealed to me. The images. Some of the most common packet stamps from the DDR had the colors and subject matter that appealed to me. That exposure turned into an off and on 50 year collecting journey. Having built and sold a not insubstantial US collection I can attest that I probably received no more pleasure from owning a Scott 64 or 245 or 292 than I did rifling through those packet stamps. PLUS, there was no financial pressure in the early days. I did not give a whit about filling an expensive space or whether or not that gum was original. We often times lose sight of what it was like in the beginning and get caught up in the more arcane and technical aspects of collecting. It IS progress and I don't fault those that love the minutiae such as 19th century postal rates and regulations. A blast when you combine the aesthetic and historical but let people be who they want in their journey.

I still don't really care. There was an article in the most recent American Philatelist about being a stamp collector, not a philatelist. A ton of people don't give a crap about postal history. They just want to collect the stamps. That's how I've always been, even 50 years ago when I started. Yes, my head is filled with all kinds of arcane philatelic trivia, but I don't actually care. I don't read books on the subject. I don't memorize postal rates. I like what I like and that's what I like. Everyone has a right to do it for whatever reason they want. I've known what I was for a very long time. I am a one-of-everything collector. I want to fill the album. I am not an accumulator. I do not have piles of stamps all over the house. In fact, I have virtually none outside of my albums. Decluttering my life was one of the best things I ever did. I am not an investor. I have a lot of expensive stamps, but I don't care. I'm not collecting for value. When I'm dead, I won't care what it's worth regardless. I do it because I like it. It gives me something to do with my spare time and money. So long as I'm entertained, I'll keep doing it. That ought to be the ultimate goal for all collectors. Just have fun.

Jossanders, Tip o' the cap to you for doing something to further the hobby. Glad you had help; what I thought was an easy task simply setting up a basic web site and typing in some text has proven to be a more Herculean effort that I'd thought, especially being a non-tech weenie. (I'm just a plain old nerd with limited techie skills.)

Nonetheless, it is the little things like your site for a very specialized area of collecting that contributes to the hobby as a whole and makes it better. Well done.

jossanders52, you took on a valuable huge task. Congratz.
Not intending to discourage you, but do you think any of your website visitors is a new collector? I think that your project attracts already collectors who want to expand their knowledge.
I know what I like, and I admit that I don't understand Revenue collecting. I won't turn down any stamp-related item that finds its way to me, be that revenue, official, cover, or some oddity, but postal stamps are my major interest. Not "understanding" revenue collection, it feels to me like collecting traffic tickets and tax declarations: Nice, but not philately.
To bring new people to become philatelists, maybe it is best to learn why existing collectors became so. In a very generalized way, collectors like to learn and research, like, when I received a 100-year-old cover I was curious to know the sender and mailing location's story; when I received an unusual WM I learned about a worldwide error in WM preparing that originated from one printer, and I learned more about WM in general.
Another feature is the technical ability, from measuring and identifying perf and perfin and WM and color shades to soaking and drying techniques and album printing.
The third feature is, no matter how old you are, having that inner child that gets excited when receiving a new stamp.
As "the punishment should fit the crime", the recruiting message should fit the potential audience: nowadays people are more attuned to videos and clips, that are short, catchy, and maybe somewhat click-bate, so YouTube comes to mind, or Tik Tok.

Thanks for all the replies since my first posting a day ago and I would like to give some feedback.

Firstly, I selected the very difficult subject of Thailand revenues because I am kind of specialized in that area collecting for 30+ years.
Yes, my website will absolutely not attract a large crowd of new young collectors. But if with my difficult, specialized subject can attract in the next 2 years say 20 new collectors, I have learned a lot and will have a roadmap for whatever other philatelic subject we want to promote, so any other more popular philatelic subject will be easy. (The knowledge can also be applied to non-philatelic subjects).

So, if SCF members are interested in my project, please register on the website www.thailandrevemues.com to follow what I am doing.
In addition, I can write maybe once per week some summary on SCF and hopefully get some comments suggestions and inputs.
I think you could help me with that, so I am not struggling alone.

I feel encouraged with the website results up till now. After 24 hours of my first post here, the results are increased as follows.
new site visits from 120 to 145
Unique visitors from 75 to 96
Registered visitors from 19 to 22
Of the registered visitors the number of registered visitors new to me increased from 6 to 8.

I am selling on www.ebay.com/b/260/" rel="nofollow">ebay for many years Thai revenues and know most of the collectors, so seeing 8 new names is quite amazing to me.
All of above in a total 8 days of operation, I think wonderful and encouraging!

My big challenge is now how to turn first time site visitors into registered users and into repeat visitors so we can build an active collecting community.

Thanks a lot.
Jos Sanders,
Bangkok Thailand

There is a typo in the website inside the text. It should be,

Special comments to Rob Roy post above.
No, I do not expect any new collectors in step 1 of my project (new collectors in step 2 with social media like Facebook , twitter etc.)
It is already good if I first build a community of existing and dormant collectors. It's no good if we try to find new collectors while we are not able to keep the existing collectors.

Before I started to collect Thailand revenue stamps, I collected for quite some years the postage stamps of Thailand and I had a beautiful collection which I sold off. I only missed 2 stamps and it became boring and static. I started Thailand revenue stamp collecting because it was a underappreciated area. I am glad that the FIP made revenue collecting a main class of the philately (sometimes in the 1990's).

With the hundreds of different kinds of taxes levied on products all over the world, I think revenues are much more expansive than postal stamps. It is more intertwined with history and ways of living than postage stamps.
But like they always say in the SCF forum, everybody should collect whatever he enjoys.
This post is not written to start an argument about what is "better", revenues or postage stamps. I just share the reason why I started revenue collecting.

jossanders52,
Congratulations on your site, I think it is great that you helping share philatelic knowledge.

I have a few thoughts if interested.

First, what is the intention (mission) of your new website? You stated the thread saying that you were 'looking for ways to attract new collectors to take up our hobby'. As others have posted, this is not going to be realistic with a specialized type of site that you have generated. To me and given your focus on traffic and registered member signups; it sounds a bit like there may be a commercial objective (if there is, no worries just state it up-front). But you may want write out exactly what you hope to achieve with the site and post it on the front page. This is not only picked up by search engines but also helps visitor immediately understand the site.

If your objective is non-commercial, then do not be too worried about traffic and do not spend a lot of time worrying about what others think. Everyone will have an opinion even when they have never developed a website, designed a user interface, or been faced with generating new content every week. Do this for intrinsic reasons and with the knowledge that you are giving back to the hobby.

Social media like FaceBook is the right demographic for our hobby (a bunch of old people) but I would suggest you reconsider social media. Publishing a website is not like a publishing a book, it is like publishing a magazine which requires daily and weekly attention. Trying to also do social media will result in you either dropping the ball with the site or dropping the ball with the social media unless you are willing to make this a fulltime job. Also note developing traffic on social media does not translate to traffic on your website.

Blogs have a place but keep in mind that their serial format makes them 'less than ideal' for presenting content in an organized fashion.

Your site needs to have both a Privacy Policy and a Term of Use, especially since you are soliciting people to 'sign up'. I am unsure who would 'sign up' from something without knowing what they are getting into to. How are you going to use their personal information? Will they get spammed? Can they opt out? Seeking active participation like sign ups and memberships moves risks and responsibilities into a new area for a website owner. Saying "Receive occasional updates & collector news…" really should have more information on what people should expect if they give you their personal info.

Learn about SEO and do not reply upon WIX to do it for you. WIX is fine for developing a quick website without coding but unless I am mistaken it sounds like you are want the site to support more functionality (i.e databases, forum, shopping cart, etc.). Be aware that by using 'no code' webhosting interfaces like WIX, Google Site, lock you into their hosting. You will never, ever to easily be able to move your site to a different hosting company without a LOT cost and costly investment of time (read as you will have to recode the entire site from scratch).
Don

Don,

Thanks a lot for your excellent post. As a newbie in the tech field, I have still to learn a lot and I will study your comments.
At this moment I am a little obsesses with site visits because if you start a website and nobody seems to care to visit, the energy needed to continue the task will quickly disappear. Yes, there is a second but not high priority motive in building a Thailand revenue stamp community. I am for years selling Thai revenues on ebay and it's becoming more and more irritating and expensive to deal with the seller unfriendly policies of ebay. (Especially if you do not operate out of the USA). A friend of mine started running an auction on Philippines stamps on his website.
He could not be happier of no longer having to deal with ebay or Paypal or Payoneer.

For the social media presence, I am talking with a friend who is Thai and also collects Thai revenues, if he could run the social media portion.
This will be in the Thai language first for a Thai audience.

Blogs do not need to be unorganized. Every subject will have a separate blog, these can be sorted into categories you can choose yourself.
You say post 6 different blogs they group automatically into the chosen category. Then you write a summary blog posted on top of the page mentioning all these new blogs and links can connect from the summary blog to the individual blogs. The individual blogs can be hidden from view and are only reachable via the summary blog.
If you go to my website and click on blog, you see on top of that page some categories I have set up, some of them are not yet populated but will be over time.

I understand about the privacy policy and terms of use, this will be done this weekend.

Don, I understand your point about being locked up by a website that does not require coding. However coding HTLM or whatever is complicated, and I feel I do not want to learn at this moment. My energy should go to content for the website. I also strongly believe that noncoding websites will be the future and websites requiring coding will only be for professional applications. Maybe coding will go the way of the dinosaur.

Don, thanks for your invaluable inputs.

Jos Sanders