This is a copy/paste job from warrior so if you read it there, this is the same thing: Okay, I haven't been here very long so please don't unload on me... just give a quick kick if necessary... I run a dog ecommerce store. I have sent my people out to forums and messageboards about our niche to get in the trenches and promote our product. It seems everybody is running a blog attached to their stores these days and I commend them for it. We are just branching out on twitter and would love to add more to our social media. So, we want to start a forum. I know - HUGE undertaking, but we think in the long run it would be well worth it. The forum would simply be for dog lovers. We thought about starting a forum and then pretending to just be another advertiser, but we decided against that idea. We want it to be known from the beginning that we run the forum. Again, it would be open to all dog lovers - but our name would be all over it. Topics would include all the normal stuff you see in other dog forums with the addition of store related items. We are thinking long term, that this could be a great way to really brand ourselves. You may start the stone throwing now
Forums work just ducky for companies. The trick is getting the time to properly manage them. It's pretty common to find a forum on most company websites for their customers. So the question here is - what are you asking? Is it a good idea? Yes. Will it work? If you manage it properly, then yes. Should you do it? I would.
forums do help with SEO, marketing, and many other ways. you know the deal. now its time to throw some stones, take cover.
Yeah Christian, I guess I didn't get around to actually asking the question. I was so apprehensive that as soon as I wrote the post I would get 20 replies with that's stupid that I forgot to ask whether or not you think the time is worth it. Thank you both for your replies. I feel better about it already.
You won't get flammed much here unless you do something really stupid Amie Most of the flaming between webmasters happens on GFY or other forums, DP is pretty clean most of the time. Welcome to DP