Forums and social networks are two of major most interactive social communication mediums on the Internet. Both have solid and largely varied user bases, but both are entirely different things.
Online forum works much like an integrated Bulletin Board. Users are able to discuss various topics and questions based on interpersonal interaction. A forum web page is organized in such a way that it resembles a tree. There would be a general theme and groups below with more specific themes. Beneath that, you could see a bunch of topics and subtopics. Each subtheme or subtopic consists of questions and answers written by forum members. Forums usually use public domain, where administrators and/or moderators make sure the forum member follow the rules and regulations. Any offensive comment can cause you to be banned from the forum area. Repeated offenses will make you be banned temporarily or even permanently.
Social networks, on the other hand do not focus on sharing information and knowledge. Each social network member is responsible on his/her own actions. It usually means you are responsible for the personal information displayed on your account. Thus, in essence a social network is a public medium, in which individuals are free to create personal account and let others to see their profiles so that they would be socially connected to friends and build new friendships/relationships online. By joining social networks and use their service, you will be able to connect and keep in touch with old friends as well as new ones easily. In addition to these, besides getting you helpful information and new friends from the internet, forums and social networks could deliver more than what meets the eyes. Here are some of the advantages of forums and social networks.
Forums:
1. It helps you build trust from others. Forum is a good place to build trust from your business’ potential prospects, as they would have a chance to get to know you, reading your posts containing some of your know-how, honesty and integrity at the forum. It also gets you to know people who have a lot in common with you, that’s comforting.
2. It helps you learn to solve your problems faster. By getting into forums, you meet people who were once in your shoes and have been out of it, and they are more than glad to share their experience, advices and pass their knowledge to you.
3. It helps generate traffic and build links to your site. In general, forums would allow you to have signature line that you can link to your site. Hence, your post along with your signature line will create a one way link directing to your blog/site. Thus, by posting more posts in forums, you get more links to your site. According to many webmasters, this is considered as a hassle-free way to build additional links to your site compared to link exchanges.
Social Networks:
1. It allows you to post a personal and professional experiences, information, and even photos to help potential customers and/or employers to check your background. Social networks are currently used by companies and schools to do some background check on potential applicants.
2. It allows you to connect and communicate with people working in the same fields of interest, giving you chances to know others and build meaningful relationships. However, it is always important to be cautious and avoid divulging personal information that can harm your personal life/business/study/job search effort.
3. It opens doors of opportunities for you as the more people you meet, the more opportunities you are likely to come across. Furthermore, as you get to know people working in similar industry or having similar hobbies you could share tips and gain useful advices and insights in return. People love to share and help one another for a bigger cause, and you would be amazed with what social networks could bring you.
4. It generates traffic and builds links to your website. Certain social networking sites like Linkedin offer targeted audiences and user demographics, which allows users to find people of the same interests. Additionally, your profiles can generally be linked to your blog and/or website. The more links you build, the better you rank on search engine’s search results.
Harness the power of forums and social networks and build a successful online profile and/or online business, along with meaningful, lifelong friendship from online forums and social networks.
