Should my company put host a message board on our website?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have recently started working for a small software company and one of our products is a knowledge management tool for lawyers and law firms. (MODS: I promise I’m not trying to hawk our products, just trying to give relevant background so I can ask for advice.)

We’re looking for creative ways to get the word out about our product, and I’m wondering about hosting a message board on our website. It would be focused on Knowledge Management, and technology for the legal community. The goal would be to get traffic to our site, and to build a name for ourselves, our company, and our products in the legal/technology community.

Does anyone know of similar efforts by other companies? I saw a similar effort on the website for a company called Llamagraphics that makes time management/productivity software for palm pilots. Can anyone point me towards any other examples?

Has anyone out there had good/bad/relevant/semi-relevant experience with this sort of thing?

Also, does anyone know how much hosting this type of this would cost?

Thanks,

Constantine

2

If you’re looking to promote your company and its products, your time and money would be better spent on actual marketing activities. If your company doesn’t already have marketing staff then you’d either need to hire some as soon as possible or contract a marketing company to do the marketing for you.