Vanilla Forums Blog

It’s unfortunate that we have to revisit this once again. However, this topic needs to be addressed properly. Facebook is indisputably a powerful platform for building your community.

In a world where it’s increasingly difficult to get — much less hold — the attention of customers, Facebook stands out as one of the few place that can be counted on to keep people coming back. It's no wonder that the vast majority of community managers have come to rely on the platform’s interactive space as an indispensable tool.

That’s all great, except for one  thing — Facebook isn't the best place to start a community.

Long before the advent of modern inbound marketing, word-of-mouth has been an important motivator for determining where people are willing to put their money. Whereas people used to look to  friends for advice on which was the best brand to buy from, however, it’s now more common for people to turn to the internet for advice. That’s why price comparison and consumer review websites quickly rose to prominence back in the late 90s.

When running a gaming community, you always have fans creating blogs and pages about your game. It’s just another way for fans to form friendships with people who share a love of their favorite game.

There are various types of fan pages which people create. Some can be friendly, where they share and support your game, while others can be harmful, promoting the use of unconventional methods to find cheats and exploits.

I’ve seen my share of pages over the years where the primary focus is to cheat the system and even sell secrets or bots. Unfortunately, there isn’t much that can be done about these pages and players unless you get a legal team involved or know someone at Facebook that can shut down each page – they will most likely just reappear later under a new name.

Automation. It’s a word that denotes simplifying repetitive tasks. Marketing Automation refers to a software your marketing department is probably already using to automate many repetitive tasks related to email marketing and website actions. It’s certainly very powerful and something that you, as the owner of your online community, want to explore in connecting to your activities.

Acer is one of the largest PC makers in the world. Its products include desktop and laptop PCs, tablets, servers, storage devices, displays, peripherals and more. One of Acer's top product lines is its gaming PCs and accessories, marketed under the Predator and Nitro brands.

We had a chance to talk with Brad Bliven, Senior Program Manager of Global Digital Services at Acer. Bliven was instrumental in getting the Acer community off the ground back in 2012. Since then, it's become a crucial channel for their service organization.