The Internet Forum

Chapter 6

Safko, The Social Media Bible

Building relationships, trust and eventually sales by participating in an internet forum seems to have both risks and rewards:

• Participating in a forum, a commercial enterprise must walk a line between being visible, knowledgeable, credible and helpful on one hand, and overbearing, or transparent in its desire to promote or sell its product or service, on the other.
• Staying on the right side of the line – participating with sincerity and restraint in order to build relationships and trust – involves sincerity and restraint – and, potentially, much time and effort by staff.  

But in the end, participation in forums is an imperative for most organizations who have a product or service to put before the public. It’s just a matter of minimizing the downside.

Starting a forum may be a good option for some organizations, especially those of medium and large size. But if participating in a forum requires a lot of time and effort, then starting and administering a forum takes even more. It’s a commitment, and failure is not a real option. But several companies that operate their own forums come to mind, including Adobe, maker of Creative Suite software, and HP, maker of printers.

These are both successful forums. The companies use them to share important information with customers, such as notices about fixing bugs, known issues, recalls, etc. Company experts monitor the forums to reply to customer questions and problems. And “power users” frequent both forums with their own advice and answers.