Hello,
I'm new to this forum, so if this has been discussed repeatedly please excuse me.

What are the advantages of a blog over a forum. I know what the difference are, but am interested in a good/bad compairison.

Thanks

Hi there,
Well I guess you could look at it from the perspective of your audience. A Blog is more like a one way avenue for you to post information to your userbase. It would be information that you as the blogger would find interesting/important to your userbase. On the other hand a forum, such as the one we are currently in, would allow your userbase to post info/questions etc. Keep in mind that you have direct control over the content on a blog, versus a forum which you would have to monitor on a constant basis.


So you have to really ask yourself the question do you want audience participation, or an information venue for your audience?

TripleDiamonds,
Thanks for the reply. I sort of want to do both. I would like to provide some content but I also wish to have the users ask questions. I leaning towards a forum at this point.

Neal M,
I would tend to lean that way as well, unless you build a page that a user can post a question to you on. Then you can pick through the questions and any that you feel teh general audience on your site would be interested in, you could post the question with the answer on your blog. That way you would not have the administration overhead of always watching the forums for content that is not suitable.

A real estate forum. I use forums (other purposes ie sports forums) all the time but this is the first time I've thought about applying it to real estate.

As anyone tried this or do you know of any example of realtors doing this?

I know no one in my market place does it or even knows what one is so I'm thinking if it worked it could be a could lead generator.

Perhaps a non-branded forum for people to use? If you generated enough leads to your website or blog this may work.

I suppose the software has start up costs but after that its free lead generation. (anyone know the costs?) Any ideas out there?

I'd pick a forum over a blog... in fact I really did. Click on my sig and that's the great new real estate forum that i've started. Check it out!

What are the costs to start it up? Is the version you are using downloadable for free? Is the start up and installation easy to do?

I started a forum over a year and half ago on my real estate website, www.lasvegasrealestateforum.com and I don't get many leads from it, in fact I don't think I have gotten any. I get hammered daily with spam (mostly pornography). I noticed that because my market is only geared towards Las Vegas, it's hard to get discussions going. It is my opinion that National Real Estate Forums will always do much better than local real estate Forums. I recently launched my National Real Estate Forum, www.WannaNetworkForum.com and its gets more discussions and posts then my local forum.

If you want to add a forum to your site, I would recommend Vbulletin, they have the best forum software in the industry and it costs around $400.

If you decided to go with your own forum, good luck to you!!!

Make sure you also review phpBB.com It's one of the leading forum software and it's absolutely free. But just briefly looking at vBulletin it seems like phpBB provides a very similar functionality. I've been running that software for several web sites and it's great.

My understanding is that vBulletin is $160 (Owned License) or $85 (Leased License).

look at my forum on my signature. I made it in a matter of a couple hours. Absolutely free, it comes with my hosting. So easy to install and free, why not use it. It's the best!

If you're trying to decide whether to use forums or blogs to get leads and draw up business, you're better off going with a blog. Forums are great for discussion, as are blogs, but blogs have several advantages (RSS) that help draw traffic. In addition, it takes a ton more work getting a forum going, and maintaining one.

Our real estate investing forums , are an example of forums running phpBB software. It is a free software, and I have been very happy with it!

I opted for a BLOG, because it's easier for my site visitors to read in my opinion, and it allows them to comment on a specific topic instead of allowing them to create new topics that I have to moderate.

The key element to either is keyword density, so that the search engines can recognize what your site is about. If you look at my blog entries, you'll see the words "Bennington" "VT" "real" and "estate" weaved throughout the text. If you're looking for it, it might seem like overkill, but if you read it without knowing what I'm doing, it seems natural.

Each time I use one of those words it reinforces the message to the search engine about what my site is really about, and ranks me higher on those keywords (which research has shown are the keywords that are most frequently used in my market area).

I think that a BLOG or a forum are an excellent idea, whichever you choose, it will help project your image as an expert, and allow you to have a two-way conversation with your site visitors.

I am currently working on a Forum myself.
I like the fact that visitors will be able to create new topics, ask questions, & reply.

I will try to keep it organized into topics (selling, buying, community, recently sold, etc...)

I will encourage visitors to ask questions regarding real estate. Hopefully this will build trust between my visitors and myself. Then hopefully others see the vlue in it (such as I did with this website), and they will ask questions and return to view answers and new postes, etc...I will also post reports, news, different stuff going on around here, post recently sold often.

I do think a blog may be a good idea, but for now I will do the forum, and make adjustments/additions as I see fit.

I am also using the phpBB forum software which is free. pretty cool stuff.

A blog allows you to showcase yourself on the web and provide tips and pointers to people wanting advice on how to buy a home. It also allows you to create a central web presence that can be found in search engines like Google and Yahoo! a lot easier. After creating a blog, you can link to it from forums and increase your traffic to your site and your search engine rankings.

I've been working on a blog system that makes it easy to create and maintain a blog on the web. Its called ListPipe. The advanced package also gives you automated blog postings every week that are relevant to Real Estate, customized for you and optimized for search engines.

Click here to check it out and sign up

A blog will rank in the search engines faster.

most forums stick a No-follow tag on your comments. If you start your own blog you have control of that, and control of the PR level by how interesting and how much you promote it. A forum you don't have much control.

even blogging at Active Rain you can build up a following.

Actually you can post your blog inside your forum!


Directory and Subdirectory



See how this forum has several main directories and subdirectories?

Like you will find this topic in the "computers and Technologies for real Estate" subdirectory under the "Successful Web Presence" directory along with the other subdirectory "Net Success".


How to blog


Well there is a way to create a Directory for your blog and make it Read Only. Your members can read the Topic but not reply.

OR

Start a Topic paste your Blog and then lock the Topic. you can even make it a sticky on top of your page



Want to make it interactive?


Make a directory called BLOGS

Make 3 sub directories

1)My Blog(Only you can post but everyone can read)

2)My Blog Feedback

3)Members Blogs

I have both blogs and a forum. I think the biggest differnce is it is easier to read about current doings-- with a blog. You have to look a little deeper in forums.

Q...

I recommend a blog. It is extremely difficult and time consuming to get a forum going. Besides, where's the advantage for you?

With a blog you are giving the info one way. If people are interested they will contact you.

Additionally, a forum is a hassle to install (not really, if you are technically inclined, but you will still need to pay for hosting etc...) You can get a blog for free (and even host it yourself if you are so inclined) by simply visiting http://blogger.com It will take you about 15 minutes to get it up and going.

If you aren't sure, just do both...

If you are looking to use both, a blog and a forum, one option could be to use WordPress, with a sharp looking theme and use vBulletin as your forum software.

At vBulletin.org they have a bridge that works with WordPress. I think one of the features allows you to set-up threads from a forum to be displayed in your WordPress blog.

WordPress is free - here ...
vBulletin is not free - here...
vBulletin.org - here ...

vbulletin is a great tool to answer questions

Even I prefer blogs to forum, an ideal real estate marketing tool. The number of leads that you generate through a blog is much higher than a forum. Also, a blog assists you in giving a better customer service. So it is blogs for me.

It's easy to blog using a discussion forum. Simply disable the reply feature when needed.

I've been using Snitz discussion forum to blog since 2001 and for responding to frequently asked questions from customers and agents. These days I also post the latest news and resources there. I've been noticing that blogs are becoming more like discussion forums.

Software capability plays a major role in what you can or cannot do. With snitz any registered member can blog, start new topics or create interactive dialogs using a conventional forum.

I wouldn't want to disable the reply feature - the idea of a blog i to communicate - one way communication soon leaves you talking to yourself. I was part of a forum once that had a "blog" forum, and you could not reply to anything. I eventually stopped reading them and never posting anything myself, either.

I think that the blog have only one advantage. It people like you their read your posts daily and if you keep the rate, they will always come back. But in a forum you can enter just because you saw an advertising, you stay 2-3 days and after that you will forgot the name of that site if it is not interesting.

I prefer forum, easier to navigate

chris
HouseYouTube.com--The Online Video Website For Real Estate-Share Your Real Estate Video -Making Memories Come Alive!!-Free Registration.

Please invite your friends and make yourself at home. Registration is FREE!!

Go for the blog I think a forum would be way to hard to drive traffic to get it started. If you had a big blog following them the jump into a forum would be easier. It is getting that following that is the hard part. The actual forum of blog format is irrelevant until you figure out how to get them their. It's not field of dreams "build it and they will come".

Cheers

Forums are easier to navigate but not quite as easy to share and syndicate. It all really depends on what you're trying to achieve with your site.

Share advice and get lots of feedback and others involved = Forum

Tell people how it is and establish yourself as an authority = Blog

Best of both worlds would be my choice.

I have seen Realtor websites that utilize a blog. They get two for the price of one.

forums for sure!!

Forums will do for me both would be even better

You can actually shoot two birds with one stone here... set up a WordPress forum and then download a forum plugin like XForum, and then you have a blog with a form built right inside it!

How about going with a blog and forum. That way you have all your bases covered. I just created a new forum for Tampa Real Estate and all agents are welcome.

I believe free hosted forums are a good thing. I know a lot of people who run very successful forums using these services. A lot of people don't even have websites but still manage to run a successful forum. Generally the admins don't even want to move from the service even when they get to >100,000 posts, they are happy all server management is done for them and the costs involved in running a large forum are handled by the main forum hosting company.

I have had a phpbb forum for a couple of years and while I don't push real estate on it most of the members know I am a Realtor and real estate questions do come up quite often. I am in a second home/seasonal area and I get many out of towne people on there trading information and wishing summer and boating season will hurry and get here.
I opted for the $5.95 a month hosting and this gets rid of the google popup ads...admin is pretty simple and I have blocks on the "seven dirty words"

It all depends on the forum and the blog. Sure a forum will provide you with a lot of backlinks because your link is in the signature but think about how would Google view a link on a blog that has a PR 0-whatever with only a few comments and links. And how does Google look at a forum that has a vast array of links on each individual page?

In my personal opinion blogs trump forums, but if you are in the need for links and want exposure quick then forums are your best bet for sure. I am sorry but I know this wasn't exactly on topic but I wanted to share the differences when it comes to seo.

I just recently started using a Wordpress plugin from Simple Press simplepressforum.com. Pretty easy to set up.

Simple Press looks like an excellent idea. From a quick look at their site it seems to have everything most people would require from a forum. The price is right too!

Well, I think that blogs are a must in the real estate business, so I would definitely go with blogs (from wordpress, activerain). I use RE forums for gathering additional information about the market from professionals.

Agree. Blogs build credibility no doubt. Forums a place to network and gather information. Depends on each other a lot instead of competing against.

Blogs are more one night stand posting. Forums are more personal.. and comfy. = )

Forums are also alot more customizable than blogs.