Good Old Forums Tops For Inc. 500 Social Media Success
Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization Add comments
Would you have guessed which form of social media outreach worked best for the Fortune 500 companies? 71% of the Inc. 500 companies surveyed said they are using Facebook for marketing, and it is the largest social media tool used, with a claimed 85% success rate for their campaigns. Twitter usage was slightly down from last year at 81%. But the big daddy of social networking was not the one that performed best.
The social media platform that outperformed all others was old school forums and message boards. Yes simply having the ability to post questions and answers to a healthy and active community of like minded users makes the most satisfied customers. It’s nice to see that the internet of 1980 is still just as effective at connecting people as ever.
Blogging moved up to a 86% success rate but engagement seems to be peaking. Podcasting dropped precipitously from last year as video takes over.
Social media data published by eMarketer.
Tags: fortune 500 website marketing, social media forums
February 7th, 2011 at 4:17 am
Do you have a good statistics report that can measure social media success on forums and Q&A sites?
February 9th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
I’m with Paul. But I agree, forums provide like-minded people a chance to connect and get quick answers. In a lot of ways, easier than Facebook and Twitter which are getting overly congested.
February 16th, 2011 at 7:11 pm
Survey of Inc. 500 companies is a good point for using forums and communities. How about small business owners – I think the marketing picture will be different.
February 24th, 2011 at 5:08 am
We are direct SEO providers of Fresh Content and forum development. We see fortune 500 companies expanding into social media and offering Q&A on their sites.
March 2nd, 2011 at 1:00 am
Wow I can’t believe good old forums are still tops with users.
March 5th, 2011 at 3:12 pm
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March 10th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Very surprised that forums are the largest social media tool.
March 24th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
What is foursquare? Got to check it out and get with the new kids.
March 26th, 2011 at 8:56 am
Wow im very surprised as well. Cant believe that Forums are on the top. Thanks for the great tip!
March 30th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
If you’re still on the fence about forums consider this: they were the earliest form of online communities, and will outlast any current social networking fad.
April 6th, 2011 at 10:11 pm
I like the knowledge that big business is using forums to engage consumers and help their customers. They are trying to add value to their products beyond SEO and appear to be succeeding.
April 6th, 2011 at 11:52 pm
It’s indeed a favorable piece of knowledge to see that corporations are employing old school forums to connect with customers. I’m happy that they have shared this helpful information, it makes me want to buy more.
April 12th, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Just wondering what the age demographics might say?
Which age groups are more likely to use one social media tool over another. It would better target the traffic your seeking?
Thanks.
April 12th, 2011 at 6:59 pm
@dakota Great point, I suspect older folks would be more comfortable with online forums where you share less personal information by default.
May 13th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Social media has always been with us, it just happens that facebook has the best user interface.
June 9th, 2011 at 6:36 am
Wow! I guess forums are a great way to have users interact, but who would have thought that they would still be such a viable form of traffic?
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June 28th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Really enjoyed this blog post, can you make it so I get an alert email whenever you publish a new post?
July 13th, 2011 at 9:27 am
Thanks for your posting about forum posts and real social networking – this still works for SEO.
September 8th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
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September 14th, 2011 at 1:28 am
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March 8th, 2012 at 8:38 am
I appreciated checking out the info on forum marketing on this internet-site, we will be creating personas for them.
April 19th, 2012 at 9:31 am
Have you heard about Google authorship feature? What do you think about it?
April 19th, 2012 at 5:13 pm
@jeremy Google is being super sneaky here by changing the rel=author to require a google+ account. I am sure this will be exploited for ranking purposes by enterprising SEO’s.
April 23rd, 2012 at 10:10 am
Grateful for this written content material, our old school forums are still making thousands in adsense revenue.
April 25th, 2012 at 9:17 am
I support the concept of using the howitzer method to politely infiltrate forums and gain peoples trust while providing free content.