What are the goals and successful outcomes of a forum?

[Accessing]

We hosted a discussion on Forum Strategy and explored some answers to questions.

This one was: What are the goals and successful outcomes of a forum?

• It’s an educational tool, increases knowledge for your members
• Business gets deflection of what would be support tickets
• It supplements a member’s journeys
• Helps identify super users
• Members get their questions answered
• The business/community learns more about members
• SEO authority from posts
• More members feeling confident and able to help others
• Brand awareness
• People feel seen
• Idea generation and quotes for articles
• It leads to members doing other things

This is a wiki post, feel free to edit this list directly or add a comment

[ADM S Osman]

A successful outcome depends on the type of forum.

I’ve joined many forums that are transactional based. I joined the UPS forum to try and find out why my package was delayed. Once I got an answer, I did not feel a need to return but I had a successful outcome in that I got the information I wanted and my faith in the UPS brand remained mostly positive.

Other forums take you on a journey but only for a short part of your life. When I was researched electric vehicles, I joined a few forums to chat to owners of different models, and when I settled on a Tesla, I joined a forum to discuss that car in more detail and what the delivery experience was like as well as get help with picking a home charger, etc. Now that I have the car, I do not need to contribute as much and I drop in less frequently but on the upside, I help others now I have some experience with the car, so the loop continues.