Speaking from personal experience, I find many of my new contacts have discovered me through my website - though one of my best forms of "exposure" is my monthly broadcast spot, for which I can thank ABC Local Radio.
Having been a forum member for a relatively short time, I haven't been around long enough to analyse what I suspect is a natural "ebb and flow" based on changing circumstances of individual contributors. I can only say that I find forum participation stimulating and encouraging, not to mention informative. I don't post a lot of my own poetry, but that is because I am not very prolific and prefer to keep my newer work under wraps to enter into competitions.
I look forward to the fortnightly homework prompts set by Maureen - not only as a brain exercise, but also a potential trigger for longer poems. I have never been able to write a poem from "nothing", but have always needed something (a story, an event) to get the creative juices flowing. Maureen's prompts are great form me - and have often led on to expanded poems or even additional poems on similar subjects. I have twice won written awards with poems which started out as homework assignments.
Regards
Shelley