forum use, do they work in an ecomm setting?

[macrost]

The reason I'm asking, is that my site is mostly ecomm, but I still added a forum to it. It's been live for almost a year, and no new people have posted on it (gasp). Now I'm not pushing it, or marketing it, but you woulda thunk someone would have posted asking a question at least once.

Any ideas?

[Livenomadic]

I normally avoid forums that have no posts in them because generally my questions never get answered.

If you want people to post then you have to start conversations so others see that the forum is actually sued.

[macrost]

Right, which i have done also. It just seems weird to me posting in a fora that has no one in it. lol

[rogerd]

In the past, I've used the "dance floor" analogy. Everyone is too self-conscious to get up there when it's empty. As it starts to get crowded, though, everyone piles in.

[rogerd]

Macrost, in thinking about your problem a bit, I don't think that since your site sells stuff that the forum is dead. There are ecommerce sites that have very successful forums. I'd start by defining the purpose of the forum - i.e., customer support, new product reviews and discussion, industry discussion, etc.

Once you have a focus, promote the forum elsewhere on the site. If you are using it for customer support, then mention the forum prominently on the FAQ page, Contact page, and other places where customers might look for support.

If you want to talk about your products, link to the forum from the product page, preferably to a specific forum or thread.

Assuming that the ecom side of the site gets a lot of traffic, then you'll definitely start getting more pageviews in the forum.

At the same time, you'll need to ignite some discussions and fan their flames - the Community Building Library [webmasterworld.com] has some good discussion of how to jump start a forum, how to turn lurkers in to posters, etc.