Brands Who Engage in Forums
Thu Aug 13, 2009 at 08:01 AM by Ethan Forums, message boards, discussion boards and community chat rooms are all great ways for people with a common interest to express ideas and share opinions online. Out of 153 brand websites observed, 37% of them are running a forum of some kind. This means there is a lot of room for growth in this area, whether it’s because companies aren’t aware of how to run a forum, or aren’t prepared to set up a forum or they aren’t aware of the power and customer engagement that a forum can command. Especially with brands that have a variety of items to offer, forums are very useful to see what people are discussing from one product to the next.
On Netflix’s discussion forum, one can see what users are saying on a variety of topics like: about movies, TV shows old and new, instant watching, etc. Users can create their own discussion topic like ‘what do you think is the most overrated movie?’ and there’s no telling how many responses there will be and how long the discussion can carry on. Pacific Sunwear is able to generate a lot of user interaction with categories like: sports, style, social and music. One can view the most recent comments and posted videos, which shows another example of a brand that is not limiting the discussion just to their own offered products or latest offers or any other selling points. There is a lot of freedom in forums in terms of allowing meaningful discussions that people can easily relate too with as few limitations as possible. |