One of the issues that arise almost every time a company is thinking of using the Internet to reach out is : Should it use a blog or a forum? The thing is, both blogs and forums are very powerful tools, with the capability of creating communities on the web, and getting users to participate.

So, when should you use a blog, and when should you use a forum?

The answer lies in two things.

  1. How much you (as the author, collaborator, organiser, webmaster) can afford to contribute
  2. What is the objective of project

How much resources are you willing to contribute?

We all bloggers know, maintaining a blog can sometimes be a pain in the a**… and a big headache! Well, I’m not saying I hate what I am doing… I love it! :mrgreen: , but we have to admit that there are days that the ideas just don’t flow, like the days you “wake up on the wrong side of the bed”, on the days your usually friendly dog decides to go around chasing kids instead of cats, and on the days you JUST don’t want to move your finger muscles. :)

Its all part and parcel of blogging… right? :mrgreen:

For a blog, you are the main drivers of the blog! Of course, sometimes there may be one author, sometimes there may be a few. But you (the authors of the blog) have to be the one to create new posts, simply because your readers are not authors! They can contribute to comments, they can chat among themselves, but most of the time, when people say “blog content”, they refer to the blog posts.

Of course, you can get co-authors when you go on a holiday, but we’ll not touch on that.

A forum, on the other hand, is different. The primary source of content for forums come from its users. You can take as long a break as you want (remember to appoint some moderators though), and your forum will keep growing and growing with content, because people are at the forum to participate, to post questions, and to chat. (it sounds good doesn’t it?) That said, every forum needs to hit a critical mass of participants and very importantly, a group of people who are regular posters, in order to be successful (there wouldn’t be much use of a forum for 3 people right?)

So, first thing, ask yourself… would you have the time to post to your blog regularly? Do you have the resources (time and ideas) to do so? A blog without updates is a dead blog! If not, maybe a forum would be better for you.

What is the objective of project?

The second question to ask is what exactly you want out of your project. This is closely related tot the first actually, but it addresses it from a different perspective.

What do you want this website to do? Both blogs and forums are places for conversation… but what kind of conversation do you want to create? Blogs are better in creating conversations centered around a particular topic that you have control with (in fact, blog comments that are irrelevant to the topic are sometimes considered as spam!)

Also, while there are blogs where the visitors interact with each other, its takes a blog of exceptional quality to achieve that (a great example is the open mic nights on Liz’s Blog – I would guess most of her readers would say she’s abnormal on the brilliant side :mrgreen: ).

Sorry Liz, you are too abnormal and I just cannot afford not to mention it! How many blog posts out there has over 230+ comments??? :mrgreen:

Most normal (like mine) blog conversations take place between the visitor and the blog author. :)

Why is that so? Because you don’t know how often the other reader visits the blog, you don’t know how many comments the fellow reader has posted.

Here is my (is this cute or ugly?) diagram of the flow of conversations in a blog:

Blog Communication

The power of forums come in letting your visitors create their own conversations, on the topics you could well care less about, as long as they fit into the category listed. This means that you essentially have lesser control over what is being discussed on the site. Visitors of a forum usually know how much a fellow visitor has been a member of the forum – it is usually shown in together with the members details alongside every post.

So I’m going to show you another picture, on the flow of conversations in a forum (I’m getting the hang of it!) :mrgreen:

Forum Communication

As you can see, even though you may be the administrator of the forum, unless you are using the admin rights to enforce a policy or something like that, you are “just another user”. Each member interacts as freely to other members, as they would interact with you.

So what are the implications of this conversation patterns?

If you are creating a site to engage your visitors in a conversation primarily with you (and secondarily within each other), then it would be better to go for a blog. If you are creating the site for a discussion between your readers, a forum is a better choice.

Have you used the right tool for your needs?