A Forum Keeps Content Fresh on Camp Connelly

Posted Sep 16th, 2008 by Jim Cosco

It is no coincidence that the websites that get the most traffic are the ones that are updated the most with new content. But producing new content every day takes a lot of effort, so it is easy to see why more and more sites are letting visitors add content and information through things like wikis, blogs, forums, and other tools common to the Web 2.0 mindset.

With a membership site, like Camp Connelly, return visits are essential, and fresh content is a key component to retaining members and converting new ones.

Connect and Share with Your Customers

The small staff at Camp Connelly already produces a massive amount of content. They add a dozen new shows, three newsletters, and a live webinar every month as well as maintaining an active blog. When members suggested introducing a forum, Don loved the idea.

“The idea of a member forum excited me for a few reasons,” says Don Connelly, Founder of Camp Connelly. “No one, not even me, has a lock on all the good ideas out there, and a forum would give members a voice to help each other and present ideas that I might not have heard. Plus, it keeps me more in touch with the members, which they like and I like.”

“No one has a lock on all the good ideas out there, and a forum gives members a voice to help each other and present ideas that I might not have heard. Plus, it keeps me more in touch with the members, which they like and I like.”

Don Connelly, Founder
Don Connelly + Associates

Forums are a great way to connect with your customers. It is an open, two-way communication tool that is easy to use and provides immediate satisfaction. Camp Connelly members embraced it immediately and began posting on it the first day of its launch.

Don’t Go It Alone

The forum also allows an opportunity for the members to actually contribute valuable content to Camp Connelly, which helps keep it fresh every day. For the small staff behind Camp Connelly, already busy churning out new content every day, the help is a welcome relief.

“Don has given the members of Camp Connelly a great new tool,” says Tippingpoint Labs Partner Jim Cosco. “Now that the members are empowered to share ideas and offer advice on their own, new content can be added seemingly overnight without us even knowing, and it has the potential to be great insight.”

Reading and posting is limited to Camp Connelly members, but non-members can at least get a peek at the Camp Connelly Forum.

Even larger organizations are turning to user-contributor forums and blogs to add new content to their sites and help relieve the workload on their taxed staff. For example, BNET, a marketing website that can thank fresh daily content and news updates for its ranking in Alexa’s top 10,000 websites, recently added blog functionality to help generate new content directly from its readership. The back-and-forth banter with readers and the authors help keep BNET’s posts fresh, long after they are first published.