The Importance of Online Communities and Forums

Online communities and forums have become a large part of internet these days. These communities and forums provide a great way to interact with different people using internet and share their interests or expertise.

Communities and forums provide platform for knowledge sharing .Since many times in today’s world we do not have time to look for answers or we do not know where to find the answers, but by means of online forums or communities we can put our query across these boards and can get answer from someone who has knowledge about the issue. Broad participation and engagement in these chats and forums ranging from a novice to an expert provides an enriching learning experience.

Communities and forums allow companies to advertise and sell their products. This could lead to lower customer service costs and increase in sales. The medium offers them opportunity to provide information to customers about their product and services, reply to customer queries and interact with them to know about their feedback on the product. Hence they offer perfect medium to companies to display their expertise in the field and generate confidence in the company.

They also help in bringing together of people with same common interests such as photography, gardening etc. Here they can share ideas, provide and seek information even provide link to other sites related to the topic.

Some communities like social networking sites offer a medium where people (known and unknown) can come together and share their personal experiences in an informal way and develop a sense of belonging which further leads to building of a long term relationships.

There are communities and forums which are based on social and health issues like cancer, AIDS, addiction, rape, domestic violence and offer support and information to patients or victims. Since these sites are online the victim/patient can chose to remain anonymous while seeking assistance. There are communities which offer help in finding suitable candidates to marry which is a real difficult task in the real world. In these communities user can get information about other person and his interests and interact with him/her to know about him more.

Communities also help people in just relaxing and rejuvenating as there are many communities where user can listen to music, watch videos, play online games and get a break from a normal tensed busy life.

Since there is a varied range of activities offered by communities and forums they form an indispensible part of our internet life.