This is a question some have asked.
Most just don’t want to do “social media”. You do get some like the “Avidyne blog” which looks nice. Obviously every word will be lawyer-checked but one would do that anyway with any social media participation.
So one gets loads of speculation and incorrect information on forums.
If they put a person in charge of posting helpful replies to questions, that company would get a lot of goodwill and thus a good bit of business.
I wonder why they don’t do it. Maybe they don’t want to appoint the necessary intelligent person to the job, because such a person is expensive and useful inside the company. Plus the legal backup to check everything that is written, before Submit is pressed.
Same goes for installers. They need to participate informatively too. I can see installers posting on some other forums but they mostly post deliberately brief replies to get their business name “up” without anything informative. We allow business participation provided the representative posts generally and informatively (i.e. in areas not purely related to their business). My view is that very often a business can give much better information because they work in the field all day.
I wouldn’t do it either as manufacturer and I never have with my companies. It is generally considered good practise to focus on your own product and not engage in arguments, comparisons etc. The best way to do this is to have your own forum. You mentioned Avidyne, that is a good example of a well maintained forum with a lot of expertise. On such a forum, the focus will be on your company and if you don’t do everything wrong, the general attitude towards you and your products will be positive.
If they put a person in charge of posting helpful replies to questions, that company would get a lot of goodwill and thus a good bit of business.
That person would soon be the target of complaints, hatred, etc. I’d never allow my staff to speak for the company on any internet forum besides our own.
not engage in arguments
The idea is that they would not arise in the first place, if you participate intelligently and usefully (yes, that costs money because you can’t get a moron to do it).
The best way to do this is to have your own forum
Most people really and truly hate manufacturer forums. The average person who is active in some technical activity already has dozens of forum logins. Mfg forums tend to be useless because the mfg leaves support to other (mostly frustrated) forum users. I can think of many… Lenovo is one of many which ought to do better.
That person would soon be the target of complaints, hatred
I don’t think so. That happens in certain sub-cultures (e.g. private pilots) and on forums which are not moderated.
Well, if the product is crap, you will be right. So maybe this is not a good model for the software business generally. Most players in that bring out new versions before they fix bugs in the old ones, etc.
Rotax have set up a forum called “rotax owners” which is officially not linked with them. I am not a frequent visitor there, but most of my microlighter fellows are, at least the tinkerers among them.
I think one look at the lynch mob mentality that sometimes surrounds the likes of the NATS gentleman who posts in an official capacity on a UK Flying forum suggests why manufacturers won’t engage.
If you need their help you will contact their support, and informal owner conversation forums are free of liability.
One company I would single out for excellent customer service though is David Clarks (despite not having a forum!)
I think one look at the lynch mob mentality….
One NATS poster there left the site, deleting all his posts on his way out (he was an admin so could do it).
I hate to say this (our Guidelines say one should not disparage other forums) but that issue is due to a lack of moderation. There are many sites out there which if moderated to block personally offensive or just aggressive material would lose say 50% of their posts, and thus advert clicks. I have very little work to do on EuroGA because there is very little trouble here. And we don’t need to drive advert clicks. If you want advert clicks then you must allow abuse and you must allow lots and lots of idle chitchat. Then the intelligent posters and their informative posts disappear, but why should you care?
However I think NATS is not the best example, because (sadly) the present-day corporate/political ethos there tends to drive upwards a certain type of personality which I also see among my biggest customers. Look at the past debates about IFR route charges where the NATS guys were openly in favour of route charges for everybody below 2000kg also. And the mandatory signature of the Official Secrets Act prevents most useful comment on ATC issues. On one occasion, a poster calling himself Menwith Hill hilariously reminded one NATS guy of the document he signed…
I don’t think GA mfg participation would be anywhere near so controversial 
If you need their help you will contact their support
Normally you will get a poor response that way. They are likely to tell you to contact your dealer (and will send you a list of them). And responses will be slanted their way e.g. Avidyne telling me (at Aero) that only their dealers are allowed per their STC to install their gear (manifestly untrue). Been there, done that. In a forum, an incorrect response would be open to questioning, which is how it should be. If I write some crap, you people will be on top of me
My view is that very often a business can give much better information because they work in the field all day.
The whole question is heavily related to culture and mindset.
If the owners and management of a company understand the purpose of a company to be to make money, they will optimize the organizational structure for that purpose. You will see a lot of hierarchy, rules, and fear of consequences. They will also have a clear boundary between “us”, the market, the customers, the employees, etc.
There is a different mindset, which is all about delighting customers. Organizations with that mindset view themselves as a small part of a larger ecosystem and work as transparent as possible. Some of these companies even publish and discuss their internal numbers and processes in public view. There is no clear boundary between company, employees and customers.
The reasoning behind each view is very interesting but it requires a lengthy conversation way beyond what you would expect on a pilot forum.
Short answer: some organizations have a culture that naturally allows participation and others simply don’t.
I think, maybe, GA firms don’t want to participate because they can sell only via dealers and their dealers would regard it as usurping what they (the dealers) tell the customer.
But that means e.g. Dynon ought to be OK with it. Do they post in forums?
The whole question is heavily related to culture and mindset.
I very much agree with Stephan here.
The discussion in this thread is pretty constrained to a certain “type” of company and mindset. That becomes IMHO very obvious by the following two assertions made in the opening post:
Obviously every word will be lawyer-checked but one would do that anyway with any social media participation.
Plus the legal backup to check everything that is written, before Submit is pressed.
I very seriously doubt that this is a common practice with any progressive, social media focused company. I don’t think organizations that have a social media department or person in place have a process that validates everything those people post by their legal department… Most companies have such a bad process landscape that I would be very surprised to find this in place. Apart from the cultural argument as brought forward above that not each and every company operates on such an (intimidated?) mindset.
I’d also like to highlight SkyDemon as a software vendor in the GA market that runs an exemplary forum on their own (with good and timely answers), runs an active facebook community that engages customers to discuss future improvements regularly and that also participates occasionally in third party forums such as euroga.
Fair enough; if you employ somebody smart, not everything has to be lawyer checked. If I participated in a forum for my business, I would not need a lawyer to check anything.
So you will find that if there is a forum where you get good honest responses from a manufacturer, they probably do come from the owner of the business. If the owner of the business needs a lawyer to check what he writes, he ought to get himself a new job
But sometimes somebody will ask a question cleverly designed to set you up… I get that from bigger customers from time to time. It is a popular activity among corporate climber types who need a scalp to earn points, and the only place they can get one is off a supplier
