Virtual tips for the savvy business owner!

As I discussed in a previous post, online forums are great for generating interest, building customer loyalty and improving your  SEO factor. There’s a risk built into forums, though, when inappropriate or unfriendly comments start turning off forum members. How involved should you be in moderating your online forum?

To answer that question, let’s look at what can happen to a forum when no one’s minding the store. All it takes to understand the concept is a quick visit to a major news outlet’s discussion forum. Unfortunately, some discussion forum members become abusive and step on the right of others to have ideas and opinions.

Since that’s not a healthy way for customers and businesses to interact, how can you set things up to prevent abuse? There are several safeguards, the first being the requirement to be a member who provides a valid email address in order to participate. A second way to keep the bullies off your forum is to make it clear in the posted membership guidelines that this is a place for respectful exchange of information.

A third way, and the topic of this post, is to moderate your forum. That doesn’t mean you need to play the heavy and slap down people who engage in lively discussion. You want members to feel like an important part of your forum community. If a member is personally attacked for expressing an idea, or if they’re blatantly selling their own products on your forum, though, it’s time to step in.

Sometimes it simply takes a generic reminder that forum posts should be kept civil and respectful. If the forum member’s posts are clearly offensive or abusive, exercise your right to delete the posts. When it gets to that point, notify the forum member their posts aren’t in the spirit of your customer forum and remind them of the guidelines. Don’t let bullies highjack your forum; repeat offenders should definitely be banned.

The point of an online forum attached to your website is to stimulate interest and discussion about topics related to your products. Encourage a lively, robust discussion and respond creatively to criticism of your products. But don’t be afraid to step in if someone’s clearly abusive of other members on the forum. Creating a place where ideas and information can be safely shared is a valuable service to your customer base. Moderate your forum fairly and they’ll reward you with their loyalty.

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