4 key considerations for having a forum on your website

If your brand or product lends itself to having a community around it, a forum is a great place for that community to establish itself, and make itself heard. There are literally hundreds of benefits of having a forum, so much that it would probably warrant its own series of blog posts, but I’ll try my best to think of the best ones:

- Allows you to build a relationship with your visitors
Having a forum means that users can start conversations about topics of interest to them, and, as they’re on your site, it’ll probably be a topic that is relevant to your market. You can then choose to join in on these discussions, offering your own opinion and stance on topics of interest to your target market. This is great because it allows you to demonstrate your knowledge of your industry and market. People are more likely to buy from someone who is credible and knows what they are talking about. They’ll also be more likely to advocate your brand, a invaluable asset to any company.

- Repeat visitors, increasing traffic.
Because a forum is dynamic (new threads being added all the time, users posting their replies, new members joining), forum participants will continue to revisit your site, to check out what’s new on the forum since they last logged in. Most forums even offer a “since last login” feature that allows users to see this activity easily. Creating a website which people will come back to again and again should be what every website owner should strive for, and this is a great way of achieving it.

- Audience profiling
On most forums, users are given the option of adding a little personal information to their profile. Age, sex, location, interests, things like that. This is good for your users as they can feel a bit more familiar with each other, but it’s fantastic for you, the forum owner, as it provides you with an easy way of establishing an audience profile. Although the audience profile won’t be completely absolute or accurate (because not all of your customers will be using your forum), it will certainly be a great start, and can be used as a benchmark for checking if your marketing endeavours are in-line with your target audience’s demographics and behaviour.

- Fresh content
More of an SEO benefit this one, and only works REALLY well if the forum sits within your own domain, but as your users will be continually adding topic / brand relevant content to your forum, there is more for the search engines to index. Search engines like fresh content, particularly when it’s relevant. Your users may also be linking to relevant, external sites, which search engines also like. Everything that gets posted gets read again and again, which is another pre-requisite for healthy SEO.

It’s worth nothing that adding a forum, and building its content so it continues to grow takes time and a bit of work. Don’t expect to add a forum and for it to just grow exponentially. You’ll probably have to create the new threads for a while, to start giving your users something to talk about. You’ll also have to make sure you join in on the discussions as much as possible, as a forum with few posts, and hardly any updates will detrimental to the appeal for new users.

Here are some really great forum platforms to get you started:

PHPbb
ASP Playground
Proboards

Go compare the meerkat that’s getting married whilst skiing with Eddie the Eagle and eating a bowl of cereal. Simples!

Everyone has seen it and it has fast become one of the most recognised and memorable adverts on TV. And I’m not talking about the annoying opera singer who makes me mute the TV every time he appears, but the furry little creatures currently fronting the campaign for Compare The Market.

Whether you love them or hate them, the meerkats with the indeterminable accent have been a roaring success. Something that hasn’t gone unnoticed and has quickly been adopted by many brands wanting to stand out from their rivals

An article recently published in Marketing Week discussed how the use of ‘characters’ within campaigns “ is proving an effective way to captivate consumers and set yourself apart from the competition”. Having a recognisable character or ongoing storyline involving familiar faces has been very successful and is now proving to be more popular (and cost effective!) than using celebrities. Given the amount of scandals that seem to hit celebrities these days I’m not surprised marketers are shying away from using them!

The reason such characters and campaigns have achieved noticeable success could be down to a number of reasons.
Bryan Urbick, director of research consultancy at that Consumer Knowledge Centres suggests that “The recession has resulted in a surge in consumer desire to seek “real” connections with brands, and characters are a solution to offering a “human touch”. Characters can be moulded and story lines created to replicate human life and circumstances or, conversely, entertain in fantasy scenarios, more so than a celebrity”.

Building a connection with the brand is key in consumer awareness and a number of campaigns which have adopted the use of characters have seen a significant increase in traffic to their website and also in their brand recall.

A report issued by parent company (to Compare the market) BGL stated that the site had doubled its market share since the launch of the campaign, with meerkat Aleksandr Orlov now having over 32,000 Twitter followers and 700,000 Facebook Fans!

Go Compare has also reported that since launching the campaign fronted by moustached opera singer ‘Gio Compario’ there has been an increase in their brand awareness by 50%!

Other successful campaigns involving recognisable characters include Churchill (nodding dog), BT (Adam and Jane), Npower (Wallace and Gromit) and of course we can’t forget the 80 year long success story of Snap, Crackle and Pop!

It’s obvious that using characters, whether real-life or cartoon, has been very successful for a number of brands. But is does seem to be mainly sectors such as utilities, food and insurance that have really seen the benefits.
Such loveable characters are easy to adapt, don’t demand much, and are less likely to have an affair resulting in a public uproar against them and what they represent. Although, I guess anything is possible...

For more info or to read the article in full click here http://bit.ly/cHKq4s.

Images taken from websites of the respective companies.

Apps for toddlers – how young is too young when it comes to modern technologies?

Fisher Price have recently announced they are launching apps for the iPhone aimed at children from as young as the age of 2.
The announcement has been met by a mixed bag of reviews with comments ranging from outrage and disgust to positive encouragement from parents and marketing professionals.

The apps, which are described as ‘perfect for keeping tots happy for five minutes or so on the go’ are based on classic Fisher Price toys including the popular Fisher Price Chatter Telephone.
Reviews of the product have so far been positive, with the majority of people praising the app and thanking Fisher Price for providing their toddlers with a programme they can easily use and enjoy.

Whether or not such apps need to be created for such small children is a question which no doubt will raise discussion amongst groups of people within all age ranges.

Although the target audience is far too young to buy an iphone, they do have access to them and will often play with their parents or older siblings devices as forms of entertainment on the go.

The move into the digital world by Fisher Price is a clever one. One that I’m sure will see their profile rise with parents (although whether this takes a negative or positive stance is up to the individual reviewing the product).

There are mixed feelings here at O&G regarding the new app, with some people slightly shocked that young children might need such a thing, and others acknowledging this is nothing new; apps for children have been around for ages and make up a large percentage of the list of the most downloaded apps.

Personally I’m not so sure. Even though it is important to ensure children are exposed to new technologies and can learn how to use them, I think we run the risk of forgetting all the fun activities that can take place without technology.

image taken from http://themobilelearner.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/child-with-iphone.jpg

From recycling light bulbs to growing tomatoes - are you green enough?

You may have noticed that in the past couple of years everyone and everything has been encouraged to ‘go green’. ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’ seems to be stamped onto an endless number of items ranging from shopping bags to emails.
And why not? For too long now many businesses have used thousands of sheets of copier and printer paper each year, not to mention disposable ink cartridges and light bulbs which after a short life span get tossed aside for another cheap replacement.

Its about time we all started doing our bit for the environment and its something which isn't a new idea to us here at O&G. For many years we have recycled our paper, plastic, glass and metals; as well as using refillable ink cartridges, energy saving light bulbs and an online system which means we use as little paper as possible.

There has been a noticeable shift in our clients needs and requirements as well. We have recently undertaken a big project for one client who required all their stationery to be printed on recycled materials, whilst retaining their high quality appearance. Other clients have requested we print on paper sourced from sustainable forests and many clients are now exploring the environmentally friendly (and cost effective!) option of taking their projects online.

A large number of our suppliers have also adopted a more ethical approach to printing. Many are ISO certified and offer a variety of recycled and sustainable products to print onto ranging from paper to promotional merchandise such as mugs, clothes and office supplies.

We may have been in a recession but the awareness and demand for ‘green’ items has never been higher and is visible within every section of the design and marketing industry.

A great example of some ‘green’ marketing was recently sent to us by a top design industry magazine. The magazine was enclosed inside a biodegradable bag and accompanied by some free tomato seeds. The first shoots are now coming through and we hope they will grow into some organic, tasty tomatoes, perfect for use at our summer BBQ!

image taken from http://www.container-gardening-for-you.com/image-files/cherrytomatoplant2.jpg