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Why manufacturers, installers and maintenance shops dislike forums?

Within my present company (not an Installer or manufacturer) it is very much a legal matter and very strict company procedures regarding interacting within forums and social media.
I am a obviously a member of a few aviation forums but can never use our company name. I very occasionally respond within a forum after clearing within our company management.
However, as someone who has been in aviation for many years I will often contact individuals privately from home if I think I can help and the same with my colleagues.
Like many companies in aviation we do keep an eye on what is being said on many forums and topics not just within our own area of expertise.

Last Edited by Martin2 at 16 Jan 11:13
EGHH, Near EGVO

The one obvious case is Tim Dawson of SkyDemon, who posts quite extensively on FLYER and not just in relation to his product.

I don’t doubt that his sensible, open and honest discussions on that forum are a good thing for his company and product.

EGLM & EGTN

Peter wrote:

corporate climber types who need a scalp to earn points, and the only place they can get one is off a supplier

Been there. I now refuse to take conference calls, which stopped 75% of this.

A few possible reasons not to participate in social media in general:

  • What I call ‘big company mentality’, which Peter mentioned above. “We’re too important to care what the customers think.”
  • If business to business, there’s little or no need for social media which is targeted at individuals and end users. Unless you can profile a typical purchasing manager from age, internet history etc and target ads at them in their private time. Of course, they don’t look at facebook at work
  • I know a small company that has a Vice President of Social Media (the job title was negotiated by the employee). I was sceptical that it was a real job, but apparently it is a lot of work writing content, creating infographics, updating various social media platforms several times a day, and responding to customer complaints. Some of the complaints are very unpleasant (and almost all are ungrammatical). I believe they’re very well paid.
  • Exposure to, and broadcasting of, complaints is a big consideration. An unhappy customer can spend an hour on hold with a call centre, or in seconds leave a vitriolic review on social media than can be seen and shared by thousands of people. Customers won’t give a good review unless prompted by a discount, but will slander at the slightest provocation.
  • Forums are usually a battle royale, with any official posters causing other users to unite against them. A lot of people do have genuine problems they need fixing, but showing they know more than other people or proving themselves right is more important. If only using forums for link building, they won’t be on EuroGA long enough to realise it’s a nice place.
EGHO-LFQF-KCLW, United Kingdom

Garmin participate on the Beech forum, a very helpful tech(?) guy, goes by the name of Trek

EGNS, Other

A few random comments:

Skydemon’s forum participation on the main UK site was pretty controversial, with a couple of their people beating up anyone who dared to suggest the product is too complex (etc). That the said forum permitted this surprised many people and led to a “considerable diversity of opinions” on that issue Much discussed here already. But certainly their forum presence played a decisive part in their market penetration.

Garmin do have a rep who posts on the big US sites and he does it well and correctly. He does it officially and seems to have backing in being able to obtain specific info from tech people deeper in the company. I also recall a guy from Avidyne. However, the US forums (funded by advertising and employing full time 24/7 paid and usually anonymous mods) run a very strict mod policy whereby anyone behaving badly is vapourised – I have seen this done to one European pilot who decided to have a fight with the mods and he was removed within an hour. When you run a very large site you can – and must – do that otherwise things will get out of control fast. In Europe the forums are much smaller and the operators are more keen to retain large volume posters at any cost because they need their presence for the advert clicks / generally to keep the site lively… but unfortunately human psychology means that those who beat people up most are also large volume posters

I suspect the overall answer to the thread question is that most companies here in Europe have not yet realised that almost nobody reads the printed magazines, and their view of forums is that is where you get beaten up all the time – which has generally been true, pre-EuroGA. Every “national” aviation forum I know of is operated to appear “unmoderated”. In recent years I have spoken to a number of people in the business and this is indeed their view of social media.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

One of the strange things about GA is that most ofthe people posting only get to see a very small slice of the industry and don’t have to deal with the practical operation on a day to day basis, let alone take leagal responsibility for the decisions they make.

With this background it’s hardly surprising that the decision makers keep their heads down as arguing with some self appointed expert who has no leagal responsibility for his opinions is a bit like arguing with a drunk in a pub.

It is also likely that you will only get told half the story, typically some guy with avionic issues will bang on about the sortcomings of your bit of kit but obmit the fact that due to the drain holes in his aircraft being blocked your bit of kit spent most of the winter under water.

On the whole dealing with the keyboard warriors is not a good use of time, but if a customer contacts the company direct with a question this is a different matter as the facts of the matter can be quickly established and considered advice given.

but if a customer contacts the company direct

That indeed is the desired result, but the key Q is: how do you achieve that initial contact in the “modern world”? How do you get the customer to phone you and not one of your competitors?

My point is that it isn’t likely to happen because you paid £3k (or whatever) for a full page ad in the national GA magazine. At work we have just analysed all new business we got in 2018 and since nearly all of it – certainly all the bigger stuff – came from abroad, we can say with a high degree of probability that none of it came from UK trade magazine advertising. Basically all of it came from online sources. I am really convinced that the only reason the printed magazines still exist is because most of the advertisers just spend their annual advert budget and never analyse anything.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Paper flying magazines have a big sale to non-pilots. I only get the LAA mag as I’m a member. I’ve never bought them.

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom

Paper magazines go in circles. After 3-5 years you have read it all. There is not enough news to keep all the pages in those magazines fresh, and you might as well start over again reading magazines from 5 year ago. A few focus only/mostly on news, but they tend to be magazines that you get “for free” being a member of an association. I have a couple of those, and they are both available as online magazines. Then there also are “video magazines” on YouTube, and all those individual YouTubers. Eventually those 3-5 year repeating magazines will vanish. Forums and other social media are probably the main sources of info for most people today.

It’’s a bit like TV. Almost no one under 40 see the news on the main channels on TV anymore. They have moved to online channels of some form, and get their news from bits and pieces here and there. But the TV people just keep on as of nothing has happened.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Paper flying magazines have a big sale to non-pilots

I now remember a conversation with one of the UK publishers, years ago. He said most of the readership is aircraft enthusiasts (plane spotters). Which of course means the adverts in them do even less than I suggested

Almost no one under 40 see the news on the main channels on TV anymore. They have moved to online channels of some form, and get their news from bits and pieces here and there. But the TV people just keep on as of nothing has happened.

Probably because there will always be over-40s around Certainly it’s true that the “young” tend to get their entire world view from social media, but I also see quite a lot of people drop off social media. I know lots of people, yes all over 40, who dropped off FB recently. The “news” on FB is mostly junk, aimed at people who are either totally bored or who don’t read anything else. It’s not an effective channel for selling a “professional” service or product.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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