Forum On the Corporate Resource, Or Do You Give Life On The Site?

FORUM ON CORPORATE RESOURCE,

OR GIVE LIFE ON THE SITE?  

For several years the Internet has been called the most powerful weapon with unlimited potential, and no one disputes with this. Very often in everyday conversations you can hear that someone received an extremely important email, a mailing of some site or saw interesting news on the net. All this allows us to call the Internet "the gift of the gods" for publicity specialists. [2, p. 142]

It has already been verified in practice that events involving a large number of people are widely commented on by ordinary Internet users in real time. At the same time, the degree of trust in this is incredibly high. [4, p. 310] Therefore, promotion in the network is an integral part of the entire advertising campaign. Without victory on the virtual front, it is not possible to achieve victory on the real. PR on the Internet is the maximum result for minimal costs.

As goals of public relations in the network can be identified: the formation of loyalty, familiarity with the brand, the formation of the right image. In addition, it is important for PR in the network of constant communication on forums, blogs, social. Networks and chats in order to "warm up the target audience". [3]

According to a survey of the Publicity Information and Analysis Center among the largest companies operating in different sectors of the economy, PR tools for their effectiveness were distributed as follows:

- participation in exhibitions and forums;

- on the Internet (news, releases, articles);

- PR-articles in the specialized press;

- PR in the network (social network, comments, forums, blogs);

- PR events for clients.

Let's look at the number 4 - PR in the network, which, I believe, has a long-term effect on the chosen strategy. Let's consider the forum on the corporate site in detail , as a communication channel.

The objectives of the forum are to support customers and generate interest in products or services. Also the forum can contain a section of answers to frequently asked questions - FAQ. These sections are rarely given much attention. But it's not right. After all, as a rule, questions of the same type about conditions, guarantees, certificates and other standard topics. Of course, all information can be placed on the pages of the site, but it is not always found quickly enough or not found at all.

The most important goal of the forum on the company's website is to support the interest of visitors to products or services, as well as fostering loyalty to the company. Forming customer demand is much more difficult. But this is the main task. To solve it, you first need to correctly group the lists of your forums so that the visitor can immediately navigate through the availability of necessary topics in a particular section. If each of the sections contains information of a certain group, visitors to the site will be able to quickly find the forum and answer in it, or ask their new question. And new issues are the interest in services, customer demand and loyal attitude. After all, if you ask about services, it means that they are of interest to your visitors, who are the future potential customers.

It is important to give more qualified answers - this increases the demand. In this case, a huge role is played by the psychological factor. So if you are ready to provide free advice to those who are not yet your client, how responsible will the relationship with the clients of the company that are paying? And then, the more messages on the forum, the (in the opinion of the consumer) the more successful and authoritative company. This means - her services are in demand. And the demand in this case is formed on the basis of the quality of services or goods. If the forum highlights the issues of your market and the forum comes a lot of visitors to ask questions, then you have many customers and you are competent in their field.

But does every site need a forum? To understand this, you need to answer the following questions: 1) whom will you unite? 2) the purpose of this or why is it needed?

The audience of any site is by no means an impersonal crowd, it is clearly structured according to a number of transparent criteria. The division of the audience into clearly defined groups (differing in their behavior on the site) facilitates its further qualitative and quantitative analysis. But the key target audience will not always be the answer to the first question (who will you unite?). So, for example, if you are a service provider 1-2 times a year (let's say a holiday organizer), then your customers are ready to talk about anything, but not about the details of decorating the room or the incendiaryness of the invited artists. But those who provide related services (for example, air designers or florists) will gladly exchange professional useful information. And maybe your community will grow even into a separate project! Few people are interested in advertising a competitor, but joint projects on a branch portal are another matter.

In the issue of setting goals for the forum, you need to be very specific. As an example of why this might be necessary, the following goal can be brought: attracting new customers with the help of search engines. So meaningful forums are useful not only for the person who asked the question, but also for someone who has not read it yet, that is, the consumer who came to the site on a specific request in the "search engine".

It happens that, despite a large number of live discussions on various topics (including those that are interesting to you and relevant to potential clients), the costs of maintaining order and competent consultations greatly exceed the useful ratio, that is, the return. In this case, the forum needs to be closed mercilessly, because it is much better that there is no such site for communication than an abandoned forum. Especially if you take into account the fact that because of spam on the forum the entire commercial site may be subject to sanctions from the search engines.

Thus, when deciding to organize a forum on a corporate site, you need to think in its expediency, answering the questions: 1) whom will you unite? 2) the purpose of this or why is it needed? Determine the willingness of the organization to service the resource, assess all risks. Clearly formulate the goals of opening the forum and compare them with the real possibilities of the site. After all, it may be that the efforts spent on this communication channel will greatly exceed the effect obtained. The solution in this situation may be the transition to another site (social networks, blogs, forums of other companies), where the target audience has already been assembled, and to open its own section there and this can be much more effective. It is also necessary to take into account the fact that even competently calculated PR actions can give absolutely the opposite result, because the recipient's feedback is not always predictable. Thus, taking into account all the criteria, if there are no objectively visible aspects, in order not to open the forum, then it is worth trying this communication channel. And, if suddenly it turns out that its use will not be effective. The forum can always be closed, while analyzing why it happened. And the received data to use in the further work.

1. How to create a popular and profitable forum [Electronic resource]. - Access mode: http://www.coolforum.ru/

2. Marconi, D. PR: A Complete Guide / Joe Marconi; Per. With the English. D. R. Gerenava. Yu. P. Leonova; Under the Society. Ed. B. L. Eremin. M., 2007.

3. Semenov, A. Piar on the Internet. Search marketing. All about promotion of sites in search engines, 2011 [Electronic resource]. - Access mode: http://www.marketingsearch.ru/article-piar_v_internete.html

4. Jaffe, D. Advertising: life after death / Joseph Jaffe; Trans. With the English. Yu. Kapturevsky. M., 2007

5. Public Relations [Electronic resource]. - Access mode: http://stanlykajurov.narod.ru/internetpr.htm

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