Know-How Exchange : Social Media

I'm curious, of your more technical staff, including programmers and directors and possibly your company's owners, who is participating in the forum?

Is only marketing involved?

And, when you say that you are not doing business with people who visit this forum, how exactly do you know that? Is it possible that potential purchasers are browsing your forum as a part of their due diligence of your firm? Or, are you saying that there is a disconnect between the type of people who are engaged in your forum and the type of people who buy your products and services?

David,

this puzzles me! If you have a forum, you can engage, simple. Just do it! What is stopping you?

I will say that most technical staff are not natural communicators. I was trying to help Brian to understand a fitness computer he had bought. The problem being that the manual was written from the point of view of the people who had designed the system. For those who were trying to work out how to get the programs running, it was frustrating. From pressing the "on" button it was merely assumed that anybody would grasp that pressing three buttons in a row would achieve the desired result. Sadly this is not immediately apparent to someone who did not design it.

It is this kind of help that often frustrates people on forums. The technical guy can't understand the person who is asking the equivalent of "what number comes after nine" - the answer being of course "a". The person asking the question doesn't know that they are counting in hexadecimal.

Am I getting warm?

What's the goal? Why do you want to engage more fully with the members of the forum? If we know that, we may be able to help. What was the goal when you set up the forum in the first place? Why did you create this community space? Did it achieve what you wanted it to?

How do you engage people?

Hmm?

See, a MAJOR part of your problem is buried deep in this little segment of your question: "engagement between the business and the forum?" Can you see it? Can you figure it out?

Let's dig a little deeper, shall we?

Nuke the words "business" and forum" and replace them with "our experts" and "our customers".
Viola! We suddenly have personality injected into the debate because we are talking about people.

Here's how you engage: someone from your company has got to get off their ass and actually take part in the discussions.

SHOCK! HORROR!

Engagement isn't something that just happens. Any talk about social media (INCLUDING forums) being all about engagement is crap—it's as simple as that.

Engagement doesn't just happen. It's not a light switch you flick on and off. It's not something
that just falls into your lap. It's got to be nurtured, encouraged, supported, and provided for.

Your forum needs a moderator with whom people can interact. Someone whip smart; someone who can write; someone who knows how many beans make five, and someone that likes people.

David, I agree with Gary. You need someone (yourself?) who will dive in and get/keep the conversation going. Is that in your job description? If not, you should recommend that a person be hired or assigned to this role.

That's the funny thing about social media, such as forums. Management thinks they operate on their own. When actually, a lot of hours are involved in keeping them going.

You should also be thinking about "content marketing," meaning creating useful documents, like research reports, how-to videos, and other downloadable material that will help keep people interested and coming back for more ways to learn from your brand.

Ruth