Internet Marketing

Forums or blogs? Which one to choose?

The problem of building communities like forums and blogs in order to achieve more sales has become a very fashionable and up-to-date topic nowadays. The war between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 hasn’t finished yet (or at least this is what seems to be the result of an ad-hoc research that we tried to conduct on the most popular software programs).

We gathered below a list with some of the most common and popular software programs (besides giants like: Microsoft and Adobe) and we tried to see whether any connection can be made between their popularity and the fact that the developing companies use in their marketing strategy blogs and forums. The list was made up according to successful software tops such as those on download.com or tucows.com.

Some of the software companies have no means of interaction with their clients; others have both blogs and forums.

The chart here represents the percentage of sites using blogs and forums respectively. In the first row we attempted to illustrate how many of the analyzed sites do have blogs and how many of them do not. Apparently, even in this web 2.0 overwhelming Internet, only 33.33% have integrated blogging in their online strategy as a way of promoting both the developing company and the products.

On the other hand, the situation seems vice versa in the case of forums. Although no clear distinction between various types of forums has been made (e.g.: support forums were included), 54,17% still employ forums as a way to promote their company or products.

At a closer inspection nevertheless, if we calculate the sum of those using at least one of them, the situation changes:

So, 58, 33% of the analyzed software developers employ at least one of these 2 methods. It seems therefore that software companies “like” to interact with their clients.

Interacting with clients through blogs and forums is important judging form the various points of view like ROI or usability. More interaction with the client means more Return of Investment; similarly a usable website means more understanding on the part of the user.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that for a software developer, it is of vital importance to use at least one of these forms in order to effectively communicate with the clients. Blogs, forums in general are sure to create the idea that there is really somebody behind the site, they are sure to build trust and readership and, finally, they are sure to help you sell more. It is of vital importance that you have the right attitude: even though you may have negative commentaries on your forum with regards to your person, it is important that you treat mistakes with much calm.

However, building communities for business purposes may be hard to manage. If you want to make the most of such communities, you should know the rules of managing them right.

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