Should I get a Froum [Archive] - UK Business Forums

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Toon

27th February 2006, 22:06

I'm thinking about adding a forum to my website and wondering whether you think it's a good idea?

The forum would simply be to discuss the products and services I offer along with general fashion chat and general chat. No advertising of other sites etc will be allowed.

So the most important question is whether it would install confidence to potential buyers.

kartel

27th February 2006, 22:28

I beleive forums is a good place for people to meet and discuss things and also make friends. it all depends how you get customer's to use your forum and for what purpose it will be used. and also will take time for members to use it regular so its hit or miss.

mattk

28th February 2006, 08:33

Hmm, you have to decide what benefits it would add, if any.

It only takes one or two less than happy customers (or indeed your competition) to turn a forum into a minefield of slanger and accusations.

Ian J

28th February 2006, 08:44

There is nothing less inspiring than a dead or underdeveloped forum and they take a lot more hard work than people think to make a success of.

Websites with dead forums on could have the opposite effect and drive people away from a perfectly good website as they will automatically associate the lack of activity with the main website too.

What's to stop your competitors joining up and posting stuff just to get the links to their own sites visible.

I briefly toyed with the idea but gave it up for the reasons stated.

cjd

28th February 2006, 09:14

They work well when you have a large number of users with a common interest and something to discuss and/or when customers have to come back regularly for advice and help - they form a self help service to back up customer support.

I'm not sure people would really want to talk about Calvin Klein underpants but only you can judge that :-)

SillyJokes

28th February 2006, 11:03

have you got time to moderate it?

You'll need to make sure people are not using it as a place to slag you off or make complaints which they ought to bring to you directly.

A sad and empty forum is not an asset to a site.

One full of abusive, sweary teenagers reflects badly on your site too.

fastfences

28th February 2006, 20:05

SteveGibson

1st March 2006, 15:19

There is nothing less inspiring than a dead or underdeveloped forum and they take a lot more hard work than people think to make a success of.

Well said.

For example, look around the various alternatives to UKBF and you'll see that most of them are dead, dead, dead....

Then find out how much time, money and effort Ozzy puts into making this forum so popular and you'll begin to get an idea of how much it takes to create a lively forum.

If you're looking for ways to grow your business then, as far as I'm concerned, having your own forum is a poor option.

To have a meaningful chance of getting a meaningful financial return, you'll have to make a large investment of time and, even then, the chances of success are really low.

There's got to be other ways you can use that same amount of time and effort which are far more likely to bring in business.

Steve

Crafts by Carolyn

8th March 2006, 20:15

Not sure whether I can help of hinder this one. :?

I run a forum on my site and it is very busy, but as already pointed out here, it is a group of people with a common interest. It definitely sells my products and gives people confidence in my products. I am lucky to have a group of people that help moderate the forum, and I could not do it on my own.

Admiral Collections

18th March 2006, 12:44

Hi Carolyn

I checked out your forum and it does appear very lively and fun too! You have done well to attract so many like minded people.

Easy to navigate too.

Nic :wink:

webster

21st March 2006, 23:38

Agreed, forum is one of the best ways to
have more users around your site and
services, and it helps your business to
do well as you get straight feedback
and request for services too ;)

John

SEOscotland.co.uk

22nd March 2006, 02:15

A forum will also make your site very sticky if considered useful or pleasant to be a member of. A stciky site can ehpl increase ad revenues if used correctly.

billhilton

27th March 2006, 21:34

DotNetWebs

28th March 2006, 09:51

A client of mine has just hired a forum posting company to fill up his - www.forumbooster.com. He's paid a couple of hundred US for a thousand postings, which suggests to me that he might not be getting the highest quality. However, I'll see what happens and report back.

Paying Yanks to post on a forum seems a bit of a bizarre concept to me. :shock:

Most forums are normally about fairly specialist or offbeat subjects. I can't imagine what sort of posts they would come up with on my Horsham Forum, for example, where recent topics includes "dog poop in the local park" and "which is the best local pub?" :wink:

DotNetWebs

28th March 2006, 09:58

Leading on from my last post, what is the most "offbeat" forum you have come across? Which one would produce the most interesting "paid for posts"?

My own favourite, which I recently found while looking for a new torch is this one

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=110250

I didn't realise some people love their torches that much :!:

billhilton

28th March 2006, 10:26

I think that if it were to work at all it would only work with fairly general forums. For example, the client I was talking about runs a discount air ticket firm that's based in the US.

A quick search for "dog poop forum" brings up this (http://www.cityfarmer.org/petwaste.html) rather interesting site...

SteveGibson

28th March 2006, 10:57

He's paid a couple of hundred US for a thousand postings, which suggests to me that he might not be getting the highest quality.

How much thought is going to go into each post at 20c a post?

Perhaps they can sell the same bunch of posts to different forums, but even at a buck a post (same post sold to 5 forums), is that really going to produce a lot of high quality, well tailored content?

I'll be very interested to learn how your client gets on.

Steve

billhilton

28th March 2006, 11:03

Well, yeah - me too. I've been secretly tasked with adding some messages myself and asking questions of the paid posters. We'll see how they cope with that :-)

DotNetWebs

28th March 2006, 11:56

The other thing that strikes me about this is that there is a very real possibility that the genuine posters will eventually find out what is going on. Especially if the same posts or posters are used on other forums. I run a couple of forums and occasionally have had trouble with spammers, trolls or offensive posters. A quick Google on their username, signature or even some of the text in the body of their message will often lead to similar stuff on other boards. It is normally very easy to spot and identify the non genuine posters. All it would take is for one of the savvy genuine posters to do something similar and the phantom poster's cover would be blown and the forums' credibility lost.

Surely it would be better to save his money and coerce a few colleagues, friends or family etc to get the ball rolling. He could even use a few aliases himself. At least the posts would come across more genuine.

Regards

Dotty

ps Interesting Dog Poop site BTW :wink: