Understanding the difference between Forums, Blogs, and Social Networks

Posted on January 28th, 2008 in: Social Media

It’s easy to get the tools mixed up, but it’s important to know the differences. Quite often (usually by executives) I’m asked the difference between Forums, Blogs, and Social Networks, here’s usually how I explain it (focusing first on usage and benefits rather than technical details):

Forums are like social mixers, where everyone is at equal level, milling about and discussing with others. These many to many communication tools allow anyone to start a topic and anyone to respond to one. Members are often at equal level, and content is usually segmented by topic. (rather than by people).

Blogs are like a keynote speech where the speaker (blogger) is in control of the discussion, but allows questions and comments from the audience.
Blogs are journals often authored by one individual, and sometimes teams. In the context of business communication, these are often used to talk with the marketplace and to join the conversation that existing external bloggers may be having.

Social Networks are like topic tables at a conference luncheon. Ever been to a conference where different lunch tables had big white signs inviting people to sit and join others of like interest? It’s like that. Social networks allow members to organize around a person’s relationships or interests, rather that just focused on topic. People that know each other (or want to meet each other) will connect by a variety of common interests. These are great tools to get people of like interest to connect to each other and share information.

It’s important to know the many different tools in your tool chest as every type of accessory fulfills a different need. Before you jump to tools, you should first understand who your community is, where they are, how they use social technologies, and most importantly, what they’re talking about. To learn more about the many forms of web marketing, see this updated list (now in Italian, Indonesian and French).

Filed under: Social Media  
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    Thanks so much for providing this brief but useful information. It widen my understanding of all the three areas you made mentioned. Keep it up.

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    So i think difference between a blog and a website is that on a website your main page remains static (it is constantly changing in case of a blog) and other pages contain mostly static information. On blogs — at least on majority of blogs — you can leave comments and interact with bloggers and other visitors. Most of the times this does not happen in case of a website although even on a website you can have online forums and discussion threads

    BlogContent is regularly updated.
    Not formal.
    Interactive.
    Informative and educational.
    Interactivity about industry/customer issues.
    Some people have a blog.WebsiteContent is static.Formal/professional.Interactivity does not exist. There is only one-way communication.Transactional.Communication about products and/or services.Almost everyone has a website. In fact, it is almost a requirement in business today.

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    So i think difference between a blog and a website is that on a website your main page remains static (it is constantly changing in case of a blog) and other pages contain mostly static information. On blogs — at least on majority of blogs — you can leave comments and interact with bloggers and other visitors. Most of the times this does not happen in case of a website although even on a website you can have online forums and discussion threads

    BlogContent is regularly updated.
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    I think one of the major difference is that a blog is own setup or forums not own setup . We can optimize own blog according to us but we can’t optimize forums according to us. Your posting also appropriate and helpful.

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    Great topic and it clarifies the point why blogs are different than forums. Sure, blogs are different from traditional types of web sites as well. Traditional sites didn’t allow their users to add content easily as they required HTML knowledge among others. However, the dawn of Blogging have allowed people to post content as comfortably never before.

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    According to me the major difference between the forums and blog is that blog is our setup or forums can’t our setup..

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  • Garry Ponus

    Hey Jeremiah, great analogies. From a blogging point of view, you can just kind of ‘hang it out there’ and see what you get. The forum is more of a community feel with in some cases, very specific rules of engagement. These can be a bit over the top to the new player sometimes.

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