In the current socially connected world, consumers have got access to multifarious platforms to share their thoughts, experiences, feedback and ideas. While it’s a win – win situation for the consumers, online marketing managers (OMM) are having their busiest days trying to cope up with managing their brand (read – reputation) on various such forums. So what platforms are OMMs spending their most time and energy on? Our research with close to 75 OMMs gave a very obvious answer – Facebook, and understandably so. With the bulk of online population spending time on this social media platform, sharing their feedback and experiences, it is an obvious first choice for the OMMs. But guess what platform was given the least time and energy? - Discussion forums
A majority of the managers who were interviewed accepted that they spent the least time on discussion forums (as compared to other platforms) as they felt that the real action is taking place on the various social media platforms (due to its viral effect) and an additional but very interesting insight given was that the top management felt that they were wasting time on such discussion forums
So here are 5 reasons why online marketing managers should keep an eye on discussion forums
- It’s here where the real discussion takes place - every social media platform has its unique propositioning. LinkedIn is for professional networking, Facebook is for friends … so on, in the same way, discussion forum is a platform meant for some real discussion. If a user is taking the pain of logging into a discussion forum, its clear that he is looking out for some information
- They provide a bigger platform - A discussion forum is not limited to a closed group of users or is neither limited to only those users who have a social profile, or only those who have either “followed” or “liked” a page/ group. Any online user, irrespective of having a social profile can log in and gain access to it, increases the reach multifold. To add to it, any user can start a new thread, thereby increasing the reach of the quality of discussion.
- You get great market trends – A discussion forum could be a gold mine in terms of catching the market trends for a marketing manager. Imagine how it would be to put in a room filled with your target market busy discussing about your product or category. Discussion forums give an opportunity to have category specific discussion , as compared to other social media platforms where you tend to have product specific company pages
- You could get primary insights for your future products – In continuation to the point mentioned above, discussion forums could also be used to gain insights/ ideas for future products. The functional aspects of future planned products could be initiated in the discussion forums as “questions “ being posed to other forum members and their un-biased , free spirited replies could be used to garner market feedback and valuable insights
- It helps you stand out from the rest – While every online user expects a company representative to be present ( De facto) and to respond to their primary queries on the various social media platforms , you could use discussion forums to connect, respond and network with your target market. This would not only help you stand out from other brands, but would also improve the brand perception in your consumer’s eyes.
So , while its true that the bulk of the online population is present on various social media platforms, its also important that Online marketing managers keep an eye on discussion forums to gain key insights on what consumers are talking about their product or category.
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