8 advantages and disadvantages of forums

Hi there, I am Praneeth.

In this blog, you will learn exactly, 8 advantages and disadvantages of forums both online and offline.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

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What are the forums?

Forums are mediums where people can share their thoughts and ideas on a subject.

There are  2 types of forums,

A general conference and a group discussion and an online forum like quora.

Here are 8 advantages and disadvantages of both online and offline forums.

Keep reading through.

8 Advantages and disadvantages of forums.

Here let’s first understand the advantages of forums in detail.

5 Advantages of forums.

Here is a quick overview of the advantages of forums.

1. It helps you build new relationships.
2. It helps you get a new perspective and immediate feedback.
3. You can get help and support.
4. It helps build brand awareness.
5. It improves communication and performance in people.

Here are the advantages in detail.

• It helps build new relationships.

Look the first things first.

Forums are online discussions of people.

Forums are a great way to find new people to meet and interact with them with text messages.

Forums like Quora and Reddit are places with millions of active users using it which can help you to meet new people and make long-lasting connections with people and yeah.

You can find new like-minded people in different categories of forums and these connections which you make on forums are mostly long-lasting.

• It helps you get a new perspective and immediate feedback.

This is my personal story.

Whenever I thought my life is stuck and I am the only one in the world with lots of problems and stuff and I used to blame y whole life due to problems which I have back then.

Thankfully, being active on forums like Reddit and quora especially,

As I kept on reading different people’s real-life stories and incidents of their life which they used to share in the communities, I realized something very important lesson of life.

Problems in life are normal and it is there in everybody’s lives.

Everyone is facing some sort of problem you never know.

The moment I realized it I have paid gratitude to god that I had fewer problems and being grateful for the things I have with me right now than complaining about the things which are not there.

In short, the forum helped me get a new perspective on life through people’s stories and life lessons.

Forums also give you a lot of new ideas in terms of starting a business idea to getting feedback on some product you either want to use or your own.

You can use forums to get feedback directly getting contact with people.

On forums of your niche and business, you can find people’s general questions and problems they have and that can help you come up with a new business idea or a product that you can sell as a solution for the problem.

These forums mainly online forums like Reddit and Quora are goldmines to get into the heads of your customers by reading their posts understanding their problem and their lifestyle, and their natural language, and responding to them.

You can get feedback on your existing business product by asking people to give their feedback on using it and come with more updates and renews and upgrades and make it better.

• You can get help and support from the community.

The interesting thing about forums Is that you can join different types of communities and groups in forums and once you stay active in a forum.

You will end up building relations with new people who are like-minded to you.

With forums, you can get help, assistance, and support from the community.

The help can be in any form.

It can be from,

1. Financial help.
2. Mental support.
3. New ideas and new perspectives for your blog and business.

You never know which sort of help and support you might get from the community you are in.

• Forums help build brand awareness.

Let’s say you have a

1. Blog
2. Online store.
3. Website.

You can start solving people’s queries on forums and mention your brand and give your solutions attached to your brand in the relevant forum.

This increases the initial brand awareness of people.

Those who visit that thread and read your forum will read your answer and know about your brand.

It gives you a kickstart for your brand advertising for free without investing a penny.

People will know that your brand exists and they can visit your business with that link.

This sends traffic and increases your sales of business and does the free marketing of your brand.

• It improves communication and the performance of people.

With offline forums like group discussions and meetings.

The good thing about forums is that It gives people a sense of freedom to talk freely and openly without any strings attached and display their views on a topic freely.

When people are given this freedom they are more likely to bring and present more ideas better flow of discussion of ideas and the chances of new inventions are high.

With these open free and healthy discussions of people, it obviously encourages new views and new ideas without being judged too quickly and that encourages people’s performance.

People have a good positive experience when their opinion and idea is valued without being ruled out.

Interestingly with forums and discussions, people can further go and do some collaborations for the business and themselves which benefit both people in life.

Here there is little to no room for getting misunderstandings because everybody is treated equally and being valued equally.

3 Disadvantages of forums.

Here are 3 disadvantages of forums,

They are:

1. There is often no clear direction.
2. Things are not always in control.
3. Online forums lack quality.

Let’s understand the disadvantages in detail.

• There is often no clear direction.

The problem with online forums is that it is mostly directionless.

What I mean is there are too many things to focus on.

I want to take examples of forums like Reddit which are the most popular mediums of interaction and discussions.

These places are not limited to only a particular topic.

There are various things that are discussed on the platform.

Because there are a lot of things on forums people can get offtopic and start discussing something different from the main topic and waste a lot of time.

There are constant social media and other notifications popping up which are also pretty distracting in an online discussion.

With online forums the problem is many people skip it because they don’t want to write long things and look for those likes and views and stop posting their reviews due to not getting enough likes and upvotes or getting responses from the other end slowly.

Another thing is that,

You never know what kind of mood the people are in on forums and they can post something rubbish or violent and it can come up in your feed which can be disturbing to you.

You know what I mean like pornographic material and violent stuff.

• Things are not always in control.

Look this is the case with most online forums like Reddit and quora.

Things are not always in control of these forum websites.

For many people especially bloggers and website owners, forums are easy targets for backlinks.

People use forums for creating those spammy and shitty backlinks to their website which are really bad.

Another disadvantage of forums is that all people are allowed.

You cant control the chances of negative publicity of your website or business on forums.

These negative publicity reviews and answers are bad and influence people who don’t know about your brand as negative publicity.

• Online forums lack quality.

What quality am I talking about,

I ti that faces facing human-level interaction and discussion.

If a user or a member disagrees with the opinion of another use, on the online forum he can only reply back and wait for the reply if the user got offended but with real-life discussions, all misunderstandings can be solved right upfront.

With online forums, there is also a chance of getting replies slow because of the slow typing of words.

Another disadvantage of online forums is that people may not understand and misinterpret the language you use and the words which appear normal to you like ironies and examples.

Whereas with real-life discussions you can see the user’s body language and signs and expressions as he communicates his idea to understand his intention better.

5 Faqs about forums.

Here are 5 frequently asked questions about forums you better know.

1. What are the limitations of the forums?

Ans; There are many disadvantages of forums,

They are,

• These places are text-based things so people who are lazy or don’t like text-based discussion or slow in typing things are out.
• And yeah there is a lot of scatteredness things are not organized.
• It is easy to offtopic.

2. What are the different types of forums?

Ans; There are different types of forums.

• There are a question and answer forum like quora.
• There are discussion forums like mostly on Reddit.
• There are both discussions & question and answer forums.

3. What are the most popular forums?

Ans; Here are 3 most popular forums,

• Reddit.
• Quora.
• StackOverflow.

I personally love quora.

4. Are forums still popular?

Ans; There are different forums that are really popular in general like take the example of Reddit, there are over 330 million people use the platform so it is no brainer that forums are very popular still.

These forums are a great way for timepass for most people including me.

5. Is online communication good or bad?

Ans:  Online communication is considered not that good because it lacks the human interaction and those emotions and happiness than being connected with technology and artificially.

No doubt technology has connected people from different parts of the world but online communication is not better than offline communication.

Ending remarks.

There you go, I have answered everything there is to know about forums,

Share the blog with your family and friends, you know sharing is caring.

Comment down what you think about forums.

Read my other blogs,

• Advantages and disadvantages of blogging.
• Advantages and disadvantages of wordpress.
• Advantages and disadvantages of Tumblr.

I will catch you next time, till then.

Keep learning and keep growing.