Online Forums

SmartCompany’s Brad Howarth published an interesting article on Australia’s Online Forums today.

Online forums are one of the oldest communication forms on the web. They enable members to engage in group conversations in real time by posting messages to an updating web page or to an automated email alert system.

The popularity of forums is exploding. According to a new report by research group Forrester, 75% of Australian adults use social networks, including forums, and one-third are classified as citics, a group that contributes to online forums, posts ratings or reviews, comments on blogs, or contribute to wikis.
Many forums today started as social activities based around a specific topic, such as internet access (Whirlpool), dance music (inthemix.com.au) or sport (BigFooty).

Five of Australia’s best online forums:
AussieBloggers: A site for Australian bloggers to share tips and information.
BigFooty: The world’s largest forum site for AFL fans, with more than 60,000 members, and also covering other sports.
Essential Baby: Parenting community forum purchased by Fairfax in 2007, which has now grown into Australia’s largest online community for women, with 139,000 members leaving 10,000 posts a day.
InTheMix: Dance music appreciation forum that grew into a company, The Sound Alliance, with division covering rock music and gay culture, along with ticketing and consulting services.
Whirlpool: Possibly Australia’s most influential forum with more than 250,000 members and 100,000 unique visitors every day, focused on issues around internet service providers and broadband communications, and expanding into other areas.

Read the full article

Guest writing on blogs

Is Facebook for you?

We recently created a Facebook page for our client, Rise Up. They have a sustainable, fair-trade, organic, no sweatshop fashion range and Facebook (and Flickr) was a great place to share their company information and range with the online community.

Recently MarketingMag.com.au published an article “Does your company need a Facebook page?” They make the point that Facebook fan pages and groups work well for some businesses and are disastrous for others.

They mentioned some facts to consider:

• If your business isn’t the kind of organisation that people are passionate (or at least mildy enthused) about, creating a social network around yourself will only serve to highlight that fact.
• If you don’t get fans, it is embarrassing and if people hate your brand then you are giving them an open online forum to express that hate.
• Only do it if you have time to create relationships and engage with your fans.

Examples of organisations with excellent Facebook pages
•    Triple J — Nice interaction with fans, constant updates, lots of photos
•    Big Cat Reality — Small business page built around a genuine community of interest (Scuba Diving)
•    The RSPCA — Regular updates and real engagement from the UK organisation
•    Fuck off Japan, Leave the Whales Alone — This highly active group is doing a great job of independently fostering discussion for their area of interest.

Examples of organisations who probably shouldn’t have a Facebook page
•    Facebook — You’d think they could do better, but their own official page is actually pretty lame; no interaction with fans.
•    B105 — They’re apparently the “#2″ radio station in Brisbane, but in Septmeber 2008, only 44 people wanted to be their Facebook friend… Ouch.
•    Sprite — Their page was clearly whipped up because their work experience kid had nothing better to do. It does nothing, goes nowhere and adds absolutely no value whatsoever to the brand.

I also think The Sydney Writers Centre has a great Facebook page.

Why I love Twitter

People following me on Twitter will know that my sweet little goldfish, Bubbles, died yesterday. She had been sick for a few weeks and we tried everything to make her better (including my friend Sarah singing to her).

I get that people don’t get fish, but if you had met Bubbles you would have realised how darling they can be!

I tweeted over the weekend updates about her being sick, and then yesterday about her dying.

What I love about twitter is that I received replies and DMs from people about Bubbles, saying how sorry they were. Some are dear friends, others I have met only once and some I have never met.

It made me realise that I have this real connect with people because of twitter. People say that the internet and email isn’t like talking with people – you can’t develop real connections but yesterday I can tell you I felt real.

I love that I can share part of my world – work as well as (some) personal -  with people that I wouldn’t share it with if it wasn’t for Twitter.

Also I have had a new business enquiry from Twitter as well as had my website SEOed by a Twitter friend.

So as my dear friend @valeriekhoo would say, the only way to get Twitter is to start using it!