Forums have incredible power for swaying consumers buying decisions.  Yet most marketers cringe when they hear someone say "what's going on with user comments on the forums these days?"  This interview with Jules Standen of Gearslutz provides some excellent advice for marketers on understanding forums. In this interview we sit down with Jules Standen who has been active in the forum world for 11 years running his extremely popular forum Gearslutz.com for the last 8 years. The forum has almost half a million threads, close to 5 million posts, and almost 130,000 members. The forum's main focus is recording equipment but also includes topics such as back-line, drums and guitars. The forum provides additional Q & A sessions with world famous engineers and producers. There are even "heavyweight" producer categories that include: Bruce Swedien, Mike Shipley, Butch Vig, Dave Pesando, Tony Maserati, John Leckie and others.

Q - The power of a product recommendation on a forum is so much more powerful than the company's own marketing programs. Yet most companies don't actively create strategies to fuel promotion. Can you shed some light on this?

A - I'm not sure that forum chatter is more powerful. I often see the results of companies' successful marketing play out on the forum but I do agree that user opinion can have a powerful influence. Very often when buyers use Google for information on a piece of new recording equipment, user opinion on Gearslutz.comcomes up very high (if not number one) in search results. I think the reason most companies don't actively create strategies to fuel promotion on forums (and other social media) is because they are wary of being seen to be conspicuously "gaming" a system, one that is meant is to be based on personal opinion and experience. The latest vibe on social media is that trust, "realness" and respect carry the most weight. The pro audio community is a cynical and sometimes mistrustful one so it's no wonder that companies don't wish to treat their customers like windup toys to be pointed in the direction of web forums and other social media.

Q - I see many companies fearful of forums and the negative posts from consumers. What would you say to these companies about the "lunatic fringe" that seems to want to bash every product?

A - In my experience, negative posts take many forms. Two typical ones are:

The 9-to-5 worker hobbyist who bought something on their lunch-break on Friday, went out for the evening Friday night, was busy most of Saturday and only opened the purchase on Saturday night. Having had trouble with it, the hobbyist dispatches e-mails to the support department and gets frustrated there is no response on Saturday night or all day on Sunday. So by 2 AM Monday morning that company is as good as a war criminal to the frustrated customer, who hops right onto a web forumsto vent their anger and to recount the world the terrible injustice suffered.

Or posts from people recalling one single negative customer service experience in the past, for example: a) genuinely shoddy customer service b) a misunderstanding, or c) an overblown customer expectation. A typical example of this being someone buying something second-hand, and then expecting support from the company or distributor as if he had purchased the product brand spanking new, the day before.

Q - Let's say a company comes across a fresh negative post about their product. What are the best strategies in dealing with situations like this?

A - About once every two or three months I take a conference call from a head of marketing and an agitated company director, both of whom are getting serious heartburn from a series of forum posts slamming their product on the forum. I first try to understand the background of the situation (and very often the complainant is well known to the company as a disgruntled past customer). Then I advise them how to move forward positively. Part of that advice is informing them that simply deleting negative posts as they appear, in an effort to sweep them under the carpet, very often goes down extremely badly with the forum community and often makes the situation far worse, with cries of "corporate slime" or attempted "control over the community".

What companies really don't want I believe, is a "whack a mole" situation whereby the minute one post is deleted three more pop-up as the community rallies behind "something bad" that appears to be an attempt at censorship. The people on the other end of the line are usually not thrilled with this news. However, we soon move on to phase 2: damage limitation assistance, advising them on how to turn the situation around to something positive!

Sometimes all you can do is contribute a one-off "final" statement within the problematic thread, which states your position calmly and with grace, extends a reasonable offer to assist, (possibly giving contact information, and perhaps a message like "please call me about this and I will personally work on sorting this out for you"). Then retire from the thread completely and avoid getting drawn back in. Other times it can be best to just sit back and do nothing and let other members of the community that have had positive experiences with your products and company defend your reputation for you. If there is one negative post followed by five positive ones, who comes out the winner? In some cases back and forth communication on the forum can end up in a triumphant solution and happy resolution for the customer.

I encourage an open door policy with manufacturers and dealers. If they are having problems I want to hear about it; if they have suggestions for how things can be better I want to hear them; and if they're having specific issues I will work with them to sort them out.

There is an element of "you can't hide on the Internet" and I think some companies are slow to understand this. For example in the past, forum members have discovered wild price differentials for basically the same OEM products and have created such a stink about it on forums that some companies have had to rethink their pricing and slink away licking their wounds, chalking the whole thing up to experience. Sometimes the finger-pointing is well deserved! We also had a case where the company's usual customer service representative was away on personal leave and the person filling in for them dropped the ball badly and the "wronged" customer went online to carp about it. Nobody gets it right all the time.

Q - What recommendations do you have for manufacturers to reach out to their loyal promoters?

A - That's a tricky one, as they should be mindful of appearing to "game the system". However, organizing giveaways, bonus items and bringing very up-to-date news to communities always goes down well. Print media might have a six-week lead-up time but forum readers want the information NOW! Bring that news!

Also having a solid Facebook and Twitter strategy in place is a good idea. A common lament I get from companies, in particular the smaller ones is "I just don't have time to get involved in forums". To that I say perhaps allocating half an hour (or even 15 minutes) a week might be a tremendous step forward and one that connects you with your customers and potential customers. It's not required that you sit perched on the forum as if it were a ticker-tape machine to be read live. There is very little "live" about forum interaction since it's always conducted on your own time and you control it. So I suggest you have to give a little to get a little! But I advise that manufacturers nominate one person to be "the voice of the company" across social media channels and forums because companies with several employees all contributing to forums can get themselves into deep water by seeming to "over-do it".

Many consumers of pro audio would be thrilled to have some sort of dialogue with the people that make their equipment. At Gearslutz.com I advise companies to register under their company name and use their company logo as their avatar (member picture) and I offer to assist them through that procedure and make myself available to advise on how best to interact with the community and to answer questions they might have. I would much prefer to see the community delighted by the arrival of a manufacturer and their input than for the community to be agitated that the manufacturer has jumped in with two left feet, simply to drive sales.

Q - I usually recommend a thank you type card included with the product that thanks the purchaser for buying the product and suggests that they tell others on their social sites and favorite forums. Do you have other suggestions along these lines?

A - I think that is a very good idea. Perhaps link to Gearslutz.com on your company's social sites and links page. If you give your customers interesting news and links, they will want to share it!

Q - Do you have some final thoughts for us?

A - I think more and more we are living our lives and conducting our businesses out in the open for all to see in this new "on-line" transparent, digital world. Information fuels it all, so perhaps be more open, be more honest, feed the info hungry with information about your company, your products and the people that use them. Get the word out there! Get involved! And get in touch with me, I'll hook you up!

For information on advertising on Gearslutz.com or to get advice on how best to interact with this large on-line community Jules can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . To visit Jules' extremely popular forum go to: www.gearslutz.com.

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