Internet Forums for Social, Search & Service?

User-generated content (UGC) is a key component to many brands' social and SEO strategies. Internet forums take those UGC benefits and add a layer of customer service capabilities.

ProBoards, the world's largest host of free Internet forums, recently announced a new managed and affordable white-label forum service, called Forums.net, specifically designed for small- and medium-sized businesses to help them more effectively engage, serve and market to customers.

"SMBs typically have limited resources and need a cost-effective way to successfully engage and support customers, which is why we created Forums.net," said Patrick Clinger, president and CEO of ProBoards. "With Forums.net, they can establish their own Internet forum to fully and intimately collaborate with their customers - something that our research has shown is lacking from other platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

"Our new platform provides a fully managed solution that's the easiest way to create a forum catered specifically to an SMB's needs without having to deal with managing servers and software. By taking all the stress and difficulty out of setting up and maintaining a direct line of customer communication, we allow businesses to focus on communication, not the toolset that facilitates it."

Key features of Forums.net include Google Analytics integration, end-to-end SSL encryption and a mobile-ready design. Forums created with Forums.net are also pre-optimized for social media sharing and search engine optimization, including InSite Forwarding which can, according to the company, help boost an SMB's search rankings by placing forum content within its own website's primary domain while still being hosted and managed by Forums.net.

Forums.net plans start at $9.99 per month and come in several different options, including "Personal," "Startup" and "Small Business."