Good Old Forums Tops For Inc. 500 Social Media Success

Inc 500  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.

social media success chart

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.

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25 Responses

  1. I support the concept of using the howitzer method to politely infiltrate forums and gain peoples trust while providing free content.

  2. Grateful for this written content material, our old school forums are still making thousands in adsense revenue.

    1. @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.

  3. I appreciated checking out the info on forum marketing on this internet-site, we will be creating personas for them.

  4. 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?

  5. Social media has always been with us, it just happens that facebook has the best user interface.

  6. 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.

    1. @dakota Great point, I suspect older folks would be more comfortable with online forums where you share less personal information by default.

  7. 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.

  8. 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.

  9. 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.

  10. We specialize delivering expert search engine marketing and customized social media solution. SEO Greeks are able to setup a tailored social media strategy that can help you engage with your customers on a personal level while increasing your site traffic and sales revenue through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many more.

    We are trying to learn as much as possible about building traffic online.

  11. 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.

  12. 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.

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