Certainly when used appropriately, Blogs and Forums are great add-ons to have on a website, but when is this not the case?  Well, before answering this question, let’s talk a little bit about what is a blog and forum.

A blog is a content management system that allows the blog owner to create postings or articles on a regular basis and to organize them by categories such as subject topics or by date.  Personal blogs tend to take the form of an online journal or diary.  Blogs for professional purposes are commonly used as an article system.  The owner writes various articles on different topics to showcase their ‘professional know how’.  People who visit the blog have the ability to leave comments to blog postings, responding to what they have read.  The blog owner can answer in turn and so begins a dialogue between the blog owner and the reader that is open to public viewing.  This interaction is very valuable.  It can be purely on a social level or the communication between blog owner and the reader can be a way to build a professional network of contacts for work referral, etc. 

If the blog content holds interest for visitors, they will return on a regularly basis to follow and participate in that blog.  Regular, high traffic both increases the blog’s search ranking and can give the blog owner the ability to generate income through their site.  This is all great, but only if the blog is active.  An active blog will have a new posting added to it at least once a week, preferably more.  A blog that is not regularly updated with new postings or is almost never contributed to offers little to site visitors.  If there is nothing new, there is nothing for visitors to participate in.  This gives the appearance that the entire site has old content and so doesn’t warrant visiting regularly.  The site appears to be stagnant.  In this case, the blog hurts the site and really shouldn’t be on the site at all. 

Similar to blogs, forums also allow people to interact with each other online.  A Forum is a platform for people to ask questions and receive answers where others can view and participate.   It’s common to find forums on large sites for customer or technical service.  There are also open forums on a particular professional subject such as web development where professionals can go for answers or advice to problems they find.  The questions are either answered by other registered users who happen to know the answer or by staffed administrators.   Social forums can be found that offer a place to discuss topics of common interest like for example a TV show.  On such a forum, users looking to chat with others about their favorite TV show can join into a conversation thread that interests them, share information, opinions and generally enjoy the dialogue.  

What is the incentive for people to participate on forums?  People with questions are looking for the answers and those who have them want to share their knowledge either to be social or to show their expertise and encourage people to work with them. 

In order for a forum to be successful, it needs to be active.  The first question is if there is enough material to warrant a forum.  If the topic is too narrow in its focus, there won’t be enough to ‘talk about’ and the forum will be quite bare.   A forum with little content is of no help to users looking for assistance or a conversation.  If the forum is just getting off its feet, it would be good to publish accumulated questions, answers and other material so users will already have content to look through that could be relevant to them.   A forum also needs to be closely monitored to be able to respond to questions and comments quickly.  The forum owner wants to encourage visitors to regularly use their forum.  For a forum to work it needs to have a lot of traffic and content.  A forum with neither is embarrassing and makes a business look bad.  Inactive forums should be removed from a website.

So the key is activity.  Blogs and forums are powerful components of a business’ social media marketing strategy.  They are great ways to draw interest into your website, promote your business, increase your site’s ranking through regular content updates and increased traffic and are means to connect with users that are interested in what you do.  Should you be considering adding a blog or forum to your site, it’s important to keep in mind that they require regular attention to write text and monitor user generated content and comments.  Neither should be considered if you don’t have the time or enough material to support them.