http://www.fatwallet.com/
Although forums and blogs share many similar features, the most noticable external differences are that forums tyically requires registration and posts are categorized and sort in chronological order and blogs are sorted in reverse-chronological order. From an internal aspect, forums tend to be harder to crawl and index, where blogs are much easier to search for.
However, from a marketing perspection, I would argue that forum is as effective as an marketing tool as blog. Although blogs are generally more suitable for company updates and new product review or launches, discussion forums allow a more organized way to look for previously answered questions on specific subject, which allow advertisements to be targeted the particular reader or posters' interest. Discussion forums are generally formed and catered to a specific hobby or topic or interest group. Advertisements targeted to those interest can easily be place in order to promote specific products, services, or brand. In fact, I believe that discussion forums tend to attract a more subject focused visitor than blog. Also, discussion forums allow interaction between users via private messaging or direct response to comments, where as blog is generally viewed as an interaction on content.
However, I felt that discussion forums have lost its attention in regards to Blog in recent years, blog being the buzz word and discussion forums are closing down one after another. In fact, during our lecture on user-generated content (UGC), the Professor did not mention too much about discussion forum as a UGC website.
Personally, I like forum more than blog because it's more organized and easier to browse and look for information. In reality, both can be benefitial, and I believe both can be used to accomplish different marketing objectives.
No comments:
Post a Comment