Wednesday, July 22, 2009

The ups and downs of forums

One of the best additions you can place on your website is an online forum. An online forum is like a bulletin board - you can place updates and news about the website without changing anything in your main online store. The forum will also allow users to post certain questions or react to certain posts of other users. In gist, a forum will allow you to interact with your customers effectively.

They can simply place questions in the forum and you can answer them as soon as possible. This can even serve as a help line as users can browse through various forum topics for answers.
But a forum might cause more damage than good if they are never implemented correctly. Your competitors can use the forum to sabotage your reputation by placing bad reviews of your products. Some can even inject virus in your forum which could affect every user visiting the forum.

To make sure your forum will work to your advantage, follow certain protocols:
• Allow posting only after signing-up.
• Profanities should never be allowed.
• Only links and no embedding should be allowed.
• Administrator has the right to bad users based on their IP address.
Once you have created a forum, be sure to support the page through updates and prompt replies to questions. It's just a waste of money and other resources if you do not support your online forum. An online forum is a highly efficient tool for online business if they are properly implemented.

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