Ways Online Forum Participation Can Benefit Your Business

Web forums can offer many of the same benefits to your business as social networks. In fact, I kind of tend to think about forums as the original social networks. They’ve been around and have been helping people much longer than MySpace and Facebook.

You’ve got profile pages, private messages, and public conversation. Perhaps they don’t typically have all the frills of a MySpace or a Facebook, but the general concept is there.

Like social networks, there are a variety of ways your business can benefit from forum participation.

Help with Specific Problems

Perhaps the most obvious benefit is the ability to get a specific question answered. If you need help or advice with a certain aspect of your business, chances are that it is a problem others have encountered in the past, and will be able to help you out. This can be tremendously helpful in many cases, especially if it is something that is really holding your business back.

Networking

Like social networks, if you regularly participate in forums, you will be networking with other people and sometimes experts. This comes back to the "it’s who you know" philosophy, and you never know how knowing the right people will benefit you further down the road.

Branding

A natural product of networking is branding. When you participate regularly, people will begin to remember and recognize you, and this together with an appropriate signature will brand your business and potentially even drive traffic to your site.

Being in the Loop

Forum participation (or even just reading them) is also a good way to stay up on current events in your industry. You get a sense of conversation that you don’t always get with news articles (unless the article gets a big comment spike). For online businesses, forums like WebProWorld, WebmasterWorld, and Digital Point are good places to monitor.

For the Inexperienced

This is especially true if you are one of the many businesses that has not yet created an online presence. You can learn a lot from forums. You should always check multiple sources before following any advice on an important topic, because not all of it you will find is going to be the best. Forums are a good way to get a feeling for how others view any particular opinions anyway. If someone posts some controversial advice, someone will almost certainly be there to contradict it. Either way, it can open up options for you to think about and open your mind to different ideas.

Forums help people in business every day. Can you pinpoint a time where forum participation has had a large impact on your business?

I couldn’t agree more with Chris on this topic. I own the largest winemaking & grape growing discussion forum on the Internet. My site gets over 7.5 million hits per month and dwarfs competitors in content, usability, etc.

I created http://www.WinePress.US with my own passion to learn to make wine at home years ago. I created the base site, added some cheap forum software and started asking people in the industry to come to my site and help others and myself with questions being posted. With increased traffic by winemakers, manufacturers of products, distributors, wineries, vineyard operators, veterans, etc I had to upgrade my forum software and bring on moderators to assist with keeping the site PG 13 as well as family friendly.

I started recommending that people in the industry to list their company names in their signature lines, list their web site too, because I felt that each time a person from company "X" helped someone, they got free advertising by getting their signature out there.

One company ended up eliminating their customer support discussion forum and direct all their customers to my forum, where they are there to help everyone now. Now, they don’t have to worry about maintaining a discussion forum, software, etc.

The bonds that are created in discussion forums are quite suprising to me, but I can see why. People have such passions for their hobbies, winemaking in this case, and greatly appreciate the opportunity to have access to the top people in the field.

I could go on and on on this for hours, but it’s been a long day, and I need to pick up more companies wanting to have a banner ad on my website to help support it. Oh, that’s another thing… With a forum, you can add so much…. I added a "Poll" section where people can do market research on products used, winemaking practices, personal info, and more. I always encourage potential advertisers to view this and use it as a tool, so they can correctly advertise to my targeted market.

If you have a moment, please take a look at the site, the forum, and the subforums.. please send me feedback, as I’m always trying to learn more.

Ok, enough already of me. Chris, you’ve done it again with another great article. Cheers, Joel

There are 7 Comments. Add Yours.

Justin
January 7, 2009 at 7:48 pm

Yuwie is building itself up to fail. If you have ever been on yuwie you would agree that the amount of ads on their site they use to compensate for paying members for nothing will ruin their site in the long run. You can’t even view your profile without having to wait 30 seconds while an ad appears before you are redirected. When I first signed up I had to view 2 pages of ads before I ever got to complete the sign up. As a internet market I tried to build referrals to yuwie for a short time due to the fact that there referral program goes 10 levels deep. It ended up being extremely difficult to get referrals. My conclusion is that was due to the immense amount of ads. The only thing i recommend yuwie for is if you are looking to start a free blog there.
Metro Fax
December 1, 2008 at 1:38 am

Great article but I’d remind people, dont’ just limit yourself you your own niche.

I do visit forums and blogs related to internet fax as that’s what we do but I always keep my eyes open for good small business and marketing forums as well.

It’s not just about doing the best job you can do at your main business – it’s about being the best business person you can be.
Joel Sommer
October 9, 2008 at 6:41 pm

I couldn’t agree more with Chris on this topic.   I own the largest winemaking & grape growing discussion forum on the Internet. My site gets over 7.5 million hits per month and dwarfs competitors in content, usability, etc.

I created http://www.WinePress.US with my own passion to learn to make wine at home years ago.   I created the base site, added some cheap forum software and started asking people in the industry to come to my site and help others and myself with questions being posted.    With increased traffic by winemakers, manufacturers of products, distributors, wineries, vineyard operators, veterans, etc I had to upgrade my forum software and bring on moderators to assist with keeping the site PG 13 as well as family friendly.

I started recommending that people in the industry to list their company names in their signature lines, list their web site too, because I felt that each time a person from company "X" helped someone, they got free advertising by getting their signature out there.

One company ended up eliminating their customer support discussion forum and direct all their customers to my forum, where they are there to help everyone now.   Now, they don’t have to worry about maintaining a discussion forum, software, etc.

The bonds that are created in discussion forums are quite suprising to me, but I can see why.   People have such passions for their hobbies, winemaking in this case, and greatly appreciate the opportunity to have access to the top people in the field.

I could go on and on on this for hours, but it’s been a long day, and I need to pick up more companies wanting to have a banner ad on my website to help support it.   Oh, that’s another thing… With a forum, you can add so much….   I added a "Poll" section where people can do market research on products used, winemaking practices, personal info, and more. I always encourage potential advertisers to view this and use it as a tool, so they can correctly advertise to my targeted market.

If you have a moment, please take a look at the site, the forum, and the subforums.. please send me feedback, as I’m always trying to learn more.

Ok, enough already of me.   Chris, you’ve done it again with another great article. Cheers, Joel
Karen Adams
February 8, 2010 at 4:52 am

With the rise in popularity of social networking sites and sites for promotional purposes, many marketers have forgotten or discounted the social marketing power of forums. NAPW
ecreativeweb
May 8, 2010 at 5:29 am

Ecreative Web is a professional Web development & Internet strategy company based in Delhi, India. We expertise in best-in-class website design, website development, eCommerce solutions, online marketing, Flash websites, corporate identity and multimedia solutions. Ecreative Web features an integrated team of web consultants, creative designers, search engine optimizers, programmers and marketing professionals that know how to get effective results
abhinav singh
September 16, 2011 at 2:48 am

well written article..
Brown
April 21, 2011 at 1:16 am

Hi, I agree that with the help of social network the business will increase rapidly one of my friend started his logistics services he tried to market his features in many ways but it was in wain later he was suggested by his friends that to take part in social networks wich will really help to promote the business after that he participated in social networks and he is seeing fruitful results.

Thanks,

Brown



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Ways Online Forum Participation Can Benefit Your Business

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