Building an online community for your business is a great idea from a marketing standpoint. This is because communicating with clients, colleagues, and others will increase your virtual visibility. Having an online community will allow you to answer questions, promote your brand, and receive feedback about your products or services. The platform that you choose for your community is very important. We will be discussing why to make a forum website rather than a Facebook group.
Secure Data
When you work on the Facebook platform, your data is not secure. Facebook is able to track your conversations, photos, posts, etc. The company takes this information so that they can sell it to third-party sites, which create targeted ads to catch your attention.
When you have a forum, you own all the content. The data can be safely backed up and exported if you want to move it somewhere else. As well, the data is kept private, which members of your community will appreciate. In addition to this, when you post on a forum, you can remain anonymous. There is no need to show your face or even real name if you feel uncomfortable making that information public.
Customization
One of the major benefits of creating a forum is being able to make it completely your own. You will be able to maintain a clear theme that your community will remember you for and continue coming back to. Facebook groups typically have to stick to the same design and layout, while forums provide more opportunities to be creative. You can change colors, logos, images, layouts, and more when you use a forum for your community.
Topics of Discussion
Facebook groups tend to be used to raise awareness of events that are taking place. The posts are typically short and to the point, simply relaying the necessary information to the public. As well, Facebook posts are organized based on the ones that have been most recently reacted to. It can be difficult for visitors to sort through the different posts to find the one that they are looking for.
Forums are able to promote conversations that are more in-depth about various topics. If a topic starts to deviate away from the original subject matter, a new thread can be created. This results in conversations about specific niches that provide genuinely helpful information to visitors to the site. The topics can easily be categorized into different categories and subcategories. This allows visitors to quickly navigate the site and find what they are looking for.
Web Traffic
If you have a forum integrated into your business website, you will increase the amount of web traffic that you are getting each day. When people are looking for information, they will search for the topics that are being discussed in the forum. Then they will already be on your website, which can provide the service or product for them to purchase.
If you are using a Facebook group, the visitor will still need to navigate to your website after they have read the information. This will potentially be when you lose their business because they could go to any site that is offering the same service as you.
Target Audience
Forums have the advantage of being accessible to anyone on the internet. You do not need a membership in order to access the website, and anyone can read and share information on them. This is appealing to certain people, especially the older demographics who might not have a Facebook account.
Monetization
Using a forum can be more worth it for you on a monetary scale. Since you own the forum, you will be able to sell ad space on the site. In addition to that, you have the option to sell your forum if you want to. The data and community all belong to you because you created it. This is not the case for Facebook groups, which are owned by the platform.
Conclusion
There are many reasons why you should consider using a forum rather than a Facebook group. Overall, you will have complete control over your forum, and you can do whatever you want with it. Facebook groups tend to be more restricting in what you can do. If you are looking for more of a customizable platform for your community to discuss specific niche topics, you will be better off setting up a forum.