Forum marketing is an excellent form of advertising that basically consists of posting your thoughts and questions and getting responses in the form of replies. It is similar in some ways to writing an email from my point of view, except that what you write is open to many people. You are looking for responses to your posts in these forums. You are also reading posts that are written in response to somebody other than you, and you are able to gather different ideas and opinions about what works for people and what doesn't. As far as I'm concerned this is an excellent way to think through whatever you are attempting to do online.
Forum marketing needs to be approached as a daily discipline and do your best to make it at least a weekly discipline. You need to find forums that are relevant to what your business is about. If you are trying to establish a presence online as a marketer, which you probably would not be reading this otherwise, then you will want to have a presence in online marketing forums such as Warrior Forum and Better Networker. Those two forums are excellent places to begin marketing yourself, your business, and to gain advice from those who are well established and successful. Do not be disappointed in the fact that some forums will ask for a small payment for a membership. The membership fee is a very small price to pay for the advice and the ability to promote yourself and your business. You will want to learn the right way of doing things in these forums and online period, so that you will earn the reputation of being a professional.
When you first join a forum, it will be best to introduce yourself and just say hello. Don't try to promote any product or business you are involved in right away. All you should really do in the beginning is introduce yourself, and possibly give a few compliments to others if you can. I think it would be a good idea to go to some of the websites that are advertised by established people in the forum, look the site over, and then go back and compliment that person on their site and their business. You don't necessarily have to buy their product to just say that their site looked impressive and you will try to come make a visit again when you can. Doing that will help that person's confidence that their efforts are paying off and might even establish a relationship with that person that enables the two of you to help each other. You will want the same from other people as well. As you try to learn marketing skills, you will want feedback from other people, and forums are good places to play with ideas like this.
Once you have been a member of a particular forum for some time, and have introduced yourself and established a certain presence that is positive, you will want to make sure you make solid contributions with your posts and replies. You can put your website links in your signatures, as allowed by the forum moderators, and as you put good, solid input into the forum people will take a look at your site. You want to build a platform of respect. You will want to base most of your post content on your own experiences and in your own words. I also think that referring to someone else's content is fine as long as you give them the credit and say you agree with their post.
Finally, everybody is limited time wise and can only do so much on a given day. Understanding that is another reason for finding maybe one to five forums that are relevant to what you are doing and concentrate on them regularly. If you try to be involved in too many things, there will be something that does not get the attention that it needs. This is also true in forum marketing and all other forms of marketing. All of us try to do too much in our daily lives and I think that is human nature. You will have to be careful about this and determine for yourself how many forums you have time to be involved in and where you have to draw the line. Having to stay out of a particular forum, even though it is a good one, because you have found the forums that work best for you is something you can't let bother you. Go with the advice of successful people, join the forums you are comfortable in, and then give things some time. I speak from experience when I say that impatience can be your enemy.
Thanks for reading and I hope this article helps in some way.
J S Moore
0 comments:
Post a Comment