Don’t Overlook Third Party Forums
- 3 Comments
- November 24th, 2008
The forum (discussion board) is still quite alive and kicking.
Many corporate brands use discussion boards on their own sites to build community and also assist customers in finding answers to technical issues.
But if you are looking for proactive marketing to reach small businesses, don’t overlook forums and discussion boards run by third parties. They can be fruitful sources of:
(1) mailing lists to rent; and
(2) passionate influencers who may be willing to try out and review your products and write about them or recommend them to other forum users.
Debra Masteler of The Link Spiel writes a very helpful piece at Search Engine Land about how to use forums to accomplish those two very things, noting:
Forums may be web 1.0 but they’re not dead yet. They present a sense of calm community not found on busy self-centric sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Forum members are loyal, giving and passionate about a topic, attributes which make them ideal marketing partners, learning centers and social communities.
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I like forums because a discussion on a topic can go on for days & days. In my experience, you don’t get quite the same personal responses on other social media platforms. Also, the forums are geared more towards a specific topic such as cooking, crafting, etc. So if I have questions on knitting a scarf, I probably could get advice on a forum.
ReplyI have to agree with the forum being the place for those passionate to a certain topic. What I really love most in forums is I get varied replies from my concerns from active forum members.
ReplyI think forum is a good type of place on the net, but sometimes it is hard to follow the discussion and the thread.
Reply