A forum allows visitors to your website to "talk" with each other via text messages that all logged-in visitors can see. Discussions about particular subjects can be organised into "threads" so people can follow just what they are interested in.

A successful forum is a great and powerful thing: it involves your audience intensely, gets them coming back to your site on a regular basis and encourages new visitors.

Most long-running forums with lots of active participants are based around quite specific subjects, for example some aspect of computer use, or a hobby.

Some forums are ways for users to help each other solve problems in a particular area. If you sell a computer program, for example, a successful forum will take a lot of pressure off your customer service department by resolving many user issues.

A blog can be like a forum, but it is driven mostly by the opinions and interests of one person. Followers mostly log-in to see what the blogger is on about at the moment, or what the blogger thinks is hot today. A blog can drive a forum and comments on a blog can be like a mini-forum.

Most attempted forums and blogs fizzle out very quickly. The amount of work in hosting a successful forum is often vastly underestimated. Public interest is often misjudged.

Before you launch into the technical issues of offering a forum or blog on your website, talk with Glide Strategic about the key issues that will determine its success – and what benefits you can expect to get out of it.