• Forums

• Blogs

It’s easy to get the tools mixed up, but it’s important to know the differences.

Forums are like social mixers, where everyone is at equal level, milling about and discussing with others. These many to many communication "rooms" allow anyone to start a topic and anyone to respond to one. Members are often at equal level, and content is usually segmented by topic (or in our case, cause, rather than by people.

Blogs are like a keynote speech where the speaker (blogger) is in control of the discussion, but allows questions and comments from the audience.  Blogs are journals often authored by one individual, and sometimes teams. In the context of business communication, these are often used to talk with the network audience and to join the conversation that existing external bloggers may be having.