How Tom's Hardware is changing content creation, engagement

Tom's Hardware is an active community for tech enthusiasts and experts, published by Bestofmedia Group. Over the past ten months, their community based online hub has shown significant growth - an 85% increase in unique visitors, 75% page view increase and 130% increase in community visits. That kind of growth warrants the question: how are they doing it. According to their editor in chief, its all about the community.

"Over the past several months we've sought to improve our readers' experience by ensuring we are covering the topics they care about most. We've maintained our focus on creating the highest quality content in our core areas such as PC components, but also greatly increased coverage around mobile, tablet, automotive tech and other consumer electronics topics. We've also seen more and more casual technology consumers develop an interest in the kind of hardcore tech topics we've always covered," said Chris Angelini, Worldwide Editor-in-Chief, Tom's Hardware.

Increasing their focus is a partial explanation, but an upgraded community forum doesn't hurt, either. Among the upgrades, a live tagging option which automatically tags subjects so that users can navigate more easily. The upgrades also include a social login, so that users can use their existing social network profiles and a reputation platform which identifies the top experts in different site categories. This way the user knows how much weight to put on answers in the forum.

Image via Shutterstock

Tags: BestofMedia Group, community building, content tips, content trends, online community, Tom's Hardware