Blogs versus Discussion Forums: What is more effective?

Posted by Kathryn Lagden, AIMS Canada...

Thanks to AIMS member and volunteer Judy Gombita, Manager of Communications at the Certified General Accountants of Ontario for sending over the link to this post from Debbie Weil about the differences between blogs and discussion forums.

This topic is something I dealt with at my previous job (before I joined AIMS). At PTO Today we had a very active discussion forum and a blog. The blog was mostly used to announce items in the news (versus engaging readers in conversation).

The reason the discussion boards worked so well was because there was one person (the founder of the company) who made sure that every question and comment was addressed. When noone else stepped into the conversation he did. This same person also authored the monthly newsletter and spoke regularly at conferences. He was a strong 'voice' participating in the community.

Debbie Weil talks about how its important for a blog to have a personality with a distinct voice. Having seen the impact of a strong 'voice' in a very active community (albeit on a discussion forum) I completely agree.

Debbie's '10 pros for a blog' and '10 cons for a message board' is well worth a read. I also really like the chart she includes from Lee Lefever that compares the difference between a blog and message board against a set of criteria.

What do you think of the pros/cons of discussion boards versus blogs? Is this something you've discussed in your company? Please share below...

Comments

[Tim Sullivan]

Hey -- that's me! I guess I've been "the voice" of the PTO Today message boards for 8 years now. Our boards have had more than 85,000 posts over the years and have been a big part of our community.

For us, the boards format fit our print magazine's mission -- a core part of what we do is share best ideas from Group A with Groups B through ZZ. And the boards do that really well on the web.

That said, I agree with Kathryn (and Debbie) on some of the limitations of boards. We/I moderate the boards very actively. I try to make sure that virtually every message gets a response (much easier now that we have the community that responds on its own, so that I don't have to jump into every thread, but this was an essential kick-start at the beginning). And I proactively guard against/disallow the common message board dominators from taking over and creating a closed-shop atmosphere.

I suppose we're a message board that acts like Debbie's vision of a blog.

Interesting discussion, especially since we're actively considering jumping much more fully into the blog waters in the near future.

Tim

[Cristina Dumitru]

Hello,
My name is Cristina Dumitru and we are interested to enter in contact with you and purpose to become a BLOGGER acredited by Publicationweb.com.
Thank you!
Cristina Dumitru
(418)-877-8270 Poste 2009
cristina.dumitru@publicationweb.com