If you visit the popular "Internet Marketing Warriors"
discussion forum, you'll notice that I have nearly 7500
posts! If you were to visit any of several dozen other
online forums and discussion boards, you'd also discover
thousands of my posts.
The reason that I have so many posts to online forums and
discussion boards is that I have found them a very
effective marketing tool. I use online forums to:
1) Allow potential customers and joint venture partners to
actually get a feel for who I am.
2) Share my knowledge on topics that I understand, while
at the same time generating links back to my sites.
3) Get quick answers to questions I have and quick
feedback on ideas that I have.
4) Conduct market research - investigating the problems,
concerns, needs, wants, and quirks of my markets.
5) Getting a feel for potential clients and joint venture
partners.
6) Getting feedback on products and services that I'm
considering purchasing, marketing or developing.
As you can see, forums can be very useful for many
purposes. Since I am in business online, I think of much
of what I do on forums as "marketing." In that regards,
there are certain rules that I follow and recommend that
you do too.
Let's look at some of my "secret" or often unspoken rules
for forum marketing.
1) Don't be anonymous. People buy from people that they
know, like and trust. If they don't even know who you are,
can't find a link to your sites, and have no clue who
they're dealing with, they can't "know" you... let alone
like and trust you.
Use your real name in your profiles, include links to your
websites, and include a photo. You don't need to tell
them everything about yourself, but people do buy from
their friends, and I'm certain that you know "who" your
friends actually "are."
2) Be courteous. For some reason, people are often
ultra-rude, more aggressive, and just plain "nasty" in
online interactions. The person that you're being mean to
may be an ideal customer or joint venture partner. Why
would you kill the relationship before it can even begin.
Also beware that others observe your interactions and take
permanent (subconscious notes).
3) Consider the long-term consequences of your posts. When
you make a comment, accusation, or attack someone on a
public discussion forum, your words often become a
"permanent" part of the search engines databases. So, even
if you later apologize or point out that you were mistaken,
when someone searches for a person or company's name in the
search engines, they may encounter the inappropriate remark
that you made. The title of that post is often the title
that show in the search engine results! Many people will
look no further after seeing your post "headlined" in the
search engines!
There's really no easy, effective way to undo the damage
once you've posted something to the database.
4) Don't forget to leave ways for people to contact you.
If the forum allows a signature file, use one. If the forum
allows a profile, set one up. Use a username that tells
who you are, and not something that you'll later want to
change :-)
5) Optimize your posts. Given that search engines DO index
your posts, you want to make sure that your keywords are in
the right places, such as the title of the posts (and maybe
in hyper-linked text). Busy forums are frequently spidered
by the search engines and are therefore an excellent way to
get your pet projects indexed!
6) Use images in your posts. Some forums allow you to post
an image link underneath your post. Where that's allowed,
you often want to include a relevant image. Images
naturally draw the eye to where you want to focus your
readers' attention... the link that you want them to click
on.
7) Participate in popular threads. Many forums give you the
count of how many views and/or posts a given thread has.
It's human nature to want to be "a part of" something
popular. So people have a tendency to read threads that
lots of others have read, and to post to threads that lots
of others have posted to. Therefore, it follows that if you
post to one of these threads you're more likely to be a
part of the noticed conversations than if you post to one
that ONLY you posted to or read.
8) Don't try to be deceptive. Many forums allow the
moderators or visitors to readily identify forum users
through features such as IP tracking. That means that when
you use multiple identities on a forum to make your topic
appear "more popular," you are often only deluding
yourself. People are alot smarter than some of us give
them credit for, and they often quickly see through such
ruses.
You should acknowledge that if you can figure out a
"sneaky" way to get an unfair advantage on a discussion
forum, then those who've been a part of that community and
using the same software for countless years have probably
seen it all. So, your tricks are painfully obvious to them
- even when they politely don't "call you on it." Instead
the community will simply ignore you until you go away.
9) Post often but watch how much time you spend on forums.
Participating in the discussion at online forums has
generated countless clients, subscribers, business
partners, and friends. That has made it a very worthwhile
investment for me. As long as you don't use participating
in forums as a means of procrastinating, it can be very
helpful for you too.
Using my secret forum marketing tactics, I have built a
steady flow of business and traffic to my websites. It's
also an excellent way to build some real relationships.
Frankly, it's not even in my top 10 most effective methods
of generating free website traffic. At the same time, I
learned a lot of those other traffic generation techniques
from online forums!
If you are curious as to what my top 10 free website
traffic generation techniques currently are, visit:
http://Top10TrafficGenerationTechniqes.com
Enjoy your time at online discussion forums. It allows you
to market while also facilitating our need for social
interaction. It is also a great way to market, as long as
you remember "my secrets of forum marketing."
----------------------------------------------------
Willie Crawford is an 11 year veteran of internet
marketing. His websites run on near autopilot, with huge
amounts of traffic generated with very few simple
techniques. Discover these simple, free traffic generation
strategies at: http://Top10TrafficGenerationTechniqes.com
