Using Forum Marketing To Grow Your Business

We are social beings by nature, and forums have become very popular social communities where like minded people gather to share their thoughts, ideas and strategies. Whilst many people join online communities specifically for social benefits, there are also professionals online who see the huge potential in forum marketing.

Personally, I join and interact on forums because it gives me a chance to promote my business through a signature link at the bottom of each valuable post I write. Others use forums just to gain a back-link to their website from their signature, and then there are people who are just starting out in the internet marketing business who are looking for advice and tips on which direction they should be heading in.

Okay, let's take a look why forums are powerful for online business owners...

1) Forum Marketing- Building On Your Existing Knowledge:

Whether you're a seasoned marketer or a newbie, conversing and participating on online forums can be very valuable for the future growth of your business. Well respected forums have a lot of valuable content shared by many different marketers who approach their business from completely different mindsets. I have learned a lot over the years just from reading other posts left by like minded people in the same industry as myself. While this may not be seen as direct forum marketing, it has helped my online business grow immensely through the years.

You can pick up some great little tips & tricks just by browsing through the popular categories of a forum, but be warned, there are also a lot of bad habits you can pick up from internet marketers who have no real clue as to how to run an online business. What I really like about forums is that there are many different viewpoints shared by successful entrepreneurs, and when a conversation erupts into a full blown debate about what are the best strategies to run a business, you will begin to see who are the experts and who are the opportunity seekers very quickly.

Opportunity seekers are the ones who give advice on how to make "quick cash" online, where the seasoned business experts will highlight the importance of creating a long-term business plan that is sustainable over time. You can pick up some great little nuggets of gold from both parties.

When joining a forum with the sole purpose of learning about your industry, I suggest you take a close look at who is doing the posting, what their strategies are, and what their goal of posting is.

Learn to distinguish from the people who actually work to provide value, and weed out the ones who simply post on forums to gain a back-link to their website, or simply just to promote their online services. Marketers who post to provide value are the ones I pay attention to. I don't trust the ones who are just posting to promote their business. This is ineffective forum marketing and I'd much rather ignore what they have to say.

I like to take notes when I go onto popular forums and I also like to write down the names of members who seem to have a strong presence on the forum. I then go through their previous posts to dig a little deeper into their overall business strategies.

You can learn a lot from these people and if you are impressed by their approach to online marketing, you can follow their posts and get to know them a little better each time you visit. Maybe I will even send a private message after a short while asking for specific answers to questions I feel they would have extensive knowledge in. This approach is very valuable and you can build valuable relationships with knowledgeable folk over time.

2) Forum Marketing- Marketing Your Online Business:

Forums are great place to promote your brand, products and services to targeted people within your niche. I use forums for many different reasons but my main reason is for promotional purposes. I have quite a bit of knowledge in the internet marketing industry and I would like to promote what I have to offer to that particular market...what better place than where these people hang out every day?

A simple little signature profile at the bottom of your posts can bring in a lot of traffic over time to your service, providing you give value to the forum that is. I have seen forum posters leave one sentence posts in an attempt to get their signature file on many threads within the forum. This is a complete waste of time and will drive very little, if any, visitors to your web space. Adding little to no value to a forum is a waste of your time, and a waste of the forums capabilities of helping you with your online presence.

If you go to the most popular internet marketing forum that exists on the net today, you will see many well known people adding consistent value to that forum. These marketers know exactly what they are doing and the reap the benefits tenfold.

Alexa Smith is a regular poster on the warrior forum and she provides incredible value to participants of that forum on a consistent basis. Alexa has marketers, and "would be" marketers, hanging onto her every word. If she decided tomorrow to launch a product within the warrior forum, she would make a boat load of cash overnight, simply because she provides valuable information every post she writes or responds too. This is how forum marketing is done effectively.

The key to making forum presence work for you is to provide as much value to the members on that forum on a consistent basis. Joining forums with the purpose of promoting your service is short sighted, your number 1 goal is to provide as much valuable advice as possible to the members.

After a short while you will notice a lot of people coming to your website from clicking on your signature link. If someone on a forum provided me with great advice on a particular question I had, I would absolutely click on the link in their signature...who wouldn't? Even if I didn't ask a question in the forum but got some great tip from a fellow marketer by reading other threads that I have no posts in, I would still click through to their service regardless. Remember also, your valuable posts will be on the forum for a very long time, so you can have consistent exposure to your business providing you regularly give value.

Conclusion:

There are many ways to promote your business online, and you should be using a mixture of them all to create an online presence that reaches far out across the whole world wide web. Forums are just one of the ways to do this, but they can be very powerful if approached in the right way.

Years ago I would have used forums to gain a back-link to my website, these days however, I approach this with a much more targeted goal in mind. Back-links are of course very valuable for search engine traffic, but not as powerful as bringing targeted traffic straight to you service or product. I participate in 5 forums related to the niche I'm in, and I spend at least an hour each day providing value in each of these forums.

Not all traffic is equal, so it's important to go where your target market is already hanging out. Forums have dramatically helped me promote my business and will continue to do so for many years to come as long as I consistently use these communities to provide value to it's members.

I also learn a lot from forums by conversing with experts in the internet marketing field I am passionate about. Don't underestimate the value of participating in high traffic forums...the value they can bring to your business is immense, as long as you use them to market your business in the proper manner.Forum marketing is one of my favorite free sources of traffic and it works wonderfully well if used in the right way.

Using Forum Marketing to Advertise

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