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by Scott Frangos

Do you use bulletin board and forum systems to do research, meet people in your profession and network? You should. That’s one big key to Social Media Marketing. But have you noticed that a lot of bulletin boards look and operate the same way they did in the 1990’s?

Why do you think that is? Complacency. Everybody is used to what a forum is supposed to look like and how it functions. Why do anything different? Let’s look at a couple that I like to use (and I’ll give you a few tips) — then at an alternative for the 2,000’s… how it should be done to take advantage of Web 2.0 technologies.

First… the Venerable WebMaster World:

Above, the well known hang-out for WebMasters — WebMaster World.com, looks pretty much the way it has for the last decade — are WebMasters really that stodgy? I guess so.

WebMaster World stays with a straight forum based on a hierarchy of Topics, and message threads associated with a topic. Boring, but it works. On the above topic list we can see that the hottest thread is one where members are discussing whether Google might be doing something evil (WebMasters love discussing whether or not Google is the Devil online). You can subscribe to these forums (and get access to some that non-subscribers cannot use) for $89 for six months. Hey… there’s some proof that there’s still some “monetization” in those old style forums (where there’s traffic… there’s money).

Another High Traffic, Old School Forum… WebMaster-Talk.com

Above, the “Blogging Forum” at WebMaster-Talk.com contains over 6700 messages.

WebMaster-Talk.com is busy, with a lot of helpful people you can hang out with on another 90’s style forum set-up. Scroll down a long list of thread topics, or start your own. Open the thread. Scroll down a long list of comments. Reply. Return later and scroll down a long list of comments to find your comment, then see if anyone replied so you can… keep scrolling and read their replies. Scroll city dude.

Tip: When you make a post on this board (and most others — but I do not see the option at WebMaster World… maybe it comes with your $89 subscription), you can include a “poll” with your post. Why do that? One of the big advantages to using Boards is that you get a “focus group” of knowlegeable people from whom you can learn about subjects of interest. Are they similar to your blog readers? Take a poll and find out what they’re thinking. What you learn is what you should be writing about on your blog.

Now let’s look at Web 2.0 Zing… on Ning

Above is one of the larger Ning Communities (over 1200 members and growing) at Friday Traffic Report, AKA Social Marketing Central. Ning Communities feature forums, groups, blogs (you get your own), photos, videos, and are big on “friends.”

Ok. What would you build with a Web 2.0 mindset to replace and jump beyond the 90’s hierarchical scrolling format of boring traditional board technologies? Enter Ning.com. Empower your members with tools? You bet. Give them a blog with RSS feeds. Let them create groups — sort of a sub level of social networking within the existing community (tip: the best groups are focused on a related technique or subject and keep things simple). Let them upload pictures, make friends and have the ability to send a group message to all their friends. Give each member their own “page” where they can import the RSS feeds from their other blogs and also advertise their businesses. Wow… now that’s taking advantage of new technology, and new social media strategy thinking. Oh, and add in a “forum” with… a hierarchical structure where you… scroll to read each post on a thread. Guess you have to throw something in for the stodgy types.

Now one last thing… about Ning. You can set up your own community there with all the tools I listed for free. That’s why I think Ning, and other forward thinking community networking start-ups are soon going to Zing right past the old-school hierarchies. Compare for yourself BlogMasters… and post your thoughts below.