How would you like to have a place for your customers to come together, to share ideas and offer suggestions even when your retail doors are closed for the day? With 24/7 schedules now the norm and consumers being inundated with so many advertising messages that they’ve become masters at ignoring them, retailers need new – and authentic – ways of connecting with customers.
Online community forums can be found on almost every exit on the information superhighway; their topics range from fashion to flying, from pet care to car care. Wherever there is a common topic of interest, you’re likely to find an online community forum drawing like-minded individuals together. Because photography remains one of the most popular hobbies in America, your business is in a prime position to grow an online community worthy of word of mouth referrals and viral growth.
Community Forums 101
Community forums are also called message boards, Web forums, and discussion boards. An Internet forum is essentially an online application that allows people to gather virtually to discuss different topics. Some forums cover broad topics while others focus on a niche idea or hobby. A forum that has a broad topic, such as photography, may have several ‘sub forums’ that cover areas such as film photography, digital techniques, location photography and such.
Considering an Online Community Forum
“A community can be a valuable resource and working with this as a starting point, growing a stable community can be a real asset,” states Ashley Busby, Business Manager at vBulletin. “So initially, time will need to be spent educating the new community members as in time they will become sources of information for other new members. This will enable the business to decrease the amount of time spent on the forum as the existing members will be able to answer on behalf of the business. A forum also opens a business up to direct comment from customers and this can be a daunting thought, but managed correctly, it also enables a loyal and trusting customer base. The added bonus is that feedback is quick, good and bad, and ideas from customers are abundant, good and bad.”
It’s The People That Make it Work
Successful community forums have a group of regular members who contribute to the forum, and they can serve as ambassadors that start new and interesting discussions, serve as a forum ‘mentor’ to new visitors and keep the forum engaging.
One thing you’ll need to have when you get your forum started is a moderator, or ‘mod,’ to help monitor threads (conversation topics). You’ll want to choose someone from your team that has forum experience or is willing to learn. This person should be a good, neutral voice on the forum and one that is wise with the choice of words and interacts well with others. The moderator will be behind the scenes most of the time, but there may be times when you’d like him to interact and provide information so this should be someone whose judgment you trust to handle those situations well.
Beware, though, because some dynamic personalities love nothing more than to pick a good fight and the anonymity offered in online forums can be the perfect cloak behind which to hide. When these ‘trolls’ as they are often called, try to ‘highjack’ a thread, they usually do so by being combative about a particular topic or attacking a person. Many forum veterans know ‘not to feed the trolls’ and simply signal to others that they aren’t going to respond in the hopes that the troll will go away, which is usually what happens when he can’t get the responses from members he’d hoped to incite.
A good moderator can also close a thread or ban a particular member if that person continually incites arguments for the sheer sake of being combative. A good moderator can be a catalyst in keeping great conversations thriving and keeping information structured in a way that hot topics are easy to find.
Weighing the Options
Deciding to run an online community is not a decision to be made without careful thought and consideration as there are significant commitments of time and energy to consider. Jenna Glatzer, the founder of AbsoluteWrite.com, found that success came with its own challenges when her seven-year-old site (which she has since sold) grew to over 17,000 members.
Glatzer states that the three challenges she faced were “technical issues, fights, and lawsuit threats.” Glatzer grew a successful site frequented by working and aspiring writers nationwide but had to deal with server crashes, forum member fights and even the occasional threat of a lawsuit.
“The lawsuit threats were mostly because I had a section of the forum meant for writers to share warnings about unscrupulous agents and publishers,” explains Glatzer. “Many of those people and companies named there sent me “scary letters” threatening legal action. If you’re going to stick your neck out in any manner like this, talk to an attorney first to understand what you should and shouldn’t do (in most cases, forum owners are not liable for anything a third party posts, according to the Communications Decency Act).”
Glatzer points out that growing her forum reaped many valuable benefits as well. “The forums are a major draw to the Web site. They earn money for the site by bringing in Google Ad revenue, and provided a place where I could announce sales and new products my company was offering. It was a great source of feedback; it helped me to learn what my readers wanted, what they talked about, how I could improve the publication.”
Reaping the Benefits Without Running the Site
If you’re interested in learning more about the benefits of online forums, consider searching for some online forums related to photography by doing a Web search. If you have a particular hobby, consider searching for a forum that addresses that hobby as well; you’ll have a different perspective visiting as an enthusiast and will be able to understand what kind of value you look for as a forum member.
You can ‘lurk’ for a while, which means just visiting the forum and reading posts without posting comments yourself. If you’d like to become a member of the community, start posting questions for the sole interest of learning others’ opinions and interests. Over time, you can look for trends that your business might be able to address through marketing, education campaigns, workshops or other customer outreach.
Online forums can be a wealth of information for you and your business and becoming active in popular photography forums can provide new insight into your customers’ minds. The best news is that there isn’t an all-or-nothing choice to make; you can begin learning about forums with a simple Web search.
Beware, though…if you find one you like, you may end up spending a lot of time there, which is exactly why they’re worth the time to investigate!
