Best Practices With What to Allow on Forums

A forum is a great way of discussing a topic that you are interested in and knowledgeable about with like minded people or of sharing your experiences and possibly helping beginners in the subject. A well run forum is a pleasure to visit - you feel welcomed and amongst friends.

Running a forum is more than just about letting every Tom, Dick and Harry join and then letting them dictate the 'mood' of the forum. It's up to you, as the administrator, to set some ground rules and abide by them.

Firstly, you must manually activate every new member registration. Spammers are unfortunately attracted to forums like flies to honey, and even the newest forums will start getting a trickle of these every day. Although it's tempting to allow these to join to up the membership levels to make it look like you've got an active forum, allowing these in will be a bad mistake. At the least you'll be inundated with advertising, and at the worst some very unwelcome posts might be made. You, as the site owner, will be responsible for what's on your forum. As you go through the registrations each day obvious spammers with made up email addresses or user names which are simply advertising products will be easy to spot. If you need to go further you can check on the IP address and where the person is coming from. If you're still not sure, do a search at StopForumSpam - an excellent website that keeps up to date records of spammers, as these people try to join every forum going. You'll soon become quite quick at spotting spammers against bonafide registrations.

You can't start a forum and then lose interest in it. Unless you are working to activate registrations, moderate comments, administer the forum and contribute to discussions yourself it's not going to get very far. Running a forum takes time every day.

You need to decide where the boundaries lie and the kind of behaviour you'll tolerate. Some forums I have been on insist people search for answers already given to similar queries before posting a new question, and when a 'newbie' posts they get responses fired at them to search the forum for answers first. Or are you more tolerant, and encourage individual replies? It might take more time repeating the same information, but it does make the forum more personal. What happens when someone asks a daft question, and gets shot down rather rudely by another member? Do you tolerate that? Or do you try to set ground rules for how people should behave towards each other.

Sometimes this might depend on the audience for your subject matter. I run a specialist forum for keeping bearded dragons, and we're likely to have older children joining as well as adults. Sometimes an incredible ignorance is shown about keeping these reptiles - people should have done their research before taking them on, and as such these poor creatures are now looking at short unhealthy lives unless their owners can be given correct advice on how to keep them. On another similar forum, new members asking stupid questions are shot down in flames, and they leave after making one post, and without gaining any help at all. On my forum I actively encourage all members to be welcomed, and their most basic questions answered so that they get the information they need to the benefit of them, and their pets.

Now this is obviously just an example, but do you want to help and encourage people? Or just have a membership of 'experts'? That is a decision you need to make, as it's you, and the moderators you might have to help you, who can influence this by the way in which your members respond to posts and also the way you moderate. Sometimes you need to PM posters who aren't interacting in the way you want them to, and accept this might lead to losing a member, but if it helps for a better community overall, the loss of one might prevent all those 'guests' who visit before taking the plunge think twice before joining. It's interesting, but I've only had one problem with a member in the 5 years I've been running the forum and had to ban them. Most members pick up the friendly culture of the forum very quickly.

When your forum starts to become very active you might find it is too much to moderate all the posts yourself. You will find regular posters are flattered if you ask them to become a moderator and help you run it. You should ensure that anyone you ask has views that do not diametrically oppose yours (although healthy debate should always be welcomed), and whose approach to answering posts is in line with the 'feel' you've developed for your forum. You might also want to appoint someone or more than one (depending on the size and activity on your forum) to be other administrators, particularly to help with the activation requests for new members. Sorting out 150+ spammers a day is better with help! I'm in the lucky position of having an administrator in Australia - from my point in the UK I do the day shift, and he does the night!

You may think you are very knowledgeable about your subject, but it's great if you attract someone to join who's known as an Expert in their area. I invited two such people from their contributions on other forums and their expert knowledge and experience has been a real boon to my forum.

If you allow people to sell items or services, you might want to think whether you're going to let people join just for this purpose, or whether you want to restrict this service to contributing members. You might also want to restrict what they can offer. A good rule is that someone needs to make 10 posts before being able to put up information about what they want to sell.

Something that encourages people to post is always helpful in trying to get a lively forum. Assigning different ranks to people who post above a certain number of posts can encourage people to try to reach the next level. On my Bearded Dragon forum we go from Egg, through Hatching to Adult - obviously not appropriate to many forums, but you get the idea.

I found that forums don't actually help you to make money - having Google ads on the forum did not bring me any revenue despite a high number of visitors to the extent that I abandoned them. People come to the forum for advice or to chat, not to click on adverts. Linking your response through to informative pages on your website is the best suggestion I can make, and of course, having a forum increases the number of visitors to your main site.

If you have a forum but it's becoming less active, look at the tone of the posts and see if the feel of the forum has changed. Unless it was once more relevant that it is now (a forum about the London Olympics will be less topical in 2013!) you might want to try to make it more positive, friendly and welcoming to newcomers. This means posting a lot yourselves, and engaging the moderators in trying to turn round the feel of the forum. If a particular member is causing problems, then don't feel bad if you need to ban them. It's your forum after all, and it's totally up to you who you allow on there. You need to make sure you and your moderators keep active and posting - people want to feel important, and like someone 'official' to respond to them.

Forums are a great addition to the internet - there's one set up for almost every niche subject, and people enjoy using them to get information they need, or to share their knowledge. A well run forum is a pleasure to visit, just like going to your friendly local pub. But no one will want to put themselves in the firing line to get abuse from bullies. So it's your job to keep them out.

Paying attention to your forum and keeping to these best practices will keep your forum active, friendly and attracting the right kind of visitors and new members.

Now That You've Joined a Membership Site, What Do You Do To Get The Most From Your Membership?

You will get the most benefit from any membership site you join when you do the following five activities...

1. Make the membership site a favorite. Bookmark it on your computer so that you do not have to remember where it is, or what it's called. Bookmark it! In fact, I would suggest that you make a special folder or a special spot just for the site(s) where you have a membership(s). Make it a favorite. Use a program like Roboform to help you remember all those passwords. Not just to help to remember all those passwords, but Roboform will also auto fill and login for you. Avoid that awful feeling of knowing you have the information "Somewhere!", but just can't find it.

2. Participate. Join the forum if there is one and be sure to complete your profile, adding your picture is a MUST. Comment on the posts, videos and articles. If they've something for you to rate, then do it! Answer questions, ask questions, just get involved. It will really help your learning, and it will also really help you get that information planted in your brain. Remember you have to make the membership site valuable to you and the only way to do that is to get in there and do the work.

3. Label the e-mail addresses from the admin group of the membership site. I use Gmail, my preferred -- I'm amazed at how much more organized I am with Gmail rather than Outlook, which I used to use. When you label that person's e-mail with the name of your membership site, it stands out in your inbox. You'll know that maybe something new has been posted, a new call has been scheduled, or perhaps a new video has been added. By labeling the e-mail address from the admin group you'll be able to quickly and easily find and use that membership site. As you get to know others in the group you can add their email address to the label you have for the membership site.

4. Do the homework. Get in there. Watch the videos. Create the web pages. Do the blog posts. Create your profiles on all the social media platforms. Do whatever it is you joined the site to learn. Do that homework, consistently! When you start to practice what has been delivered within the site, you will be amazed at how quickly you can become proficient. So get in there and do the homework.

5. Use the tools and the techniques provided within the site. I have met people at different events and have discovered we are members of the same site. When we discuss the membership site that we both belong to I find that they never went in and used the tools that were provided. I belong to a Web Graphics Explained membership site and Frank provided a ton of different graphics. When I was talking about how I had used them the other person said they didn't even know they were there! Click on all of the buttons, investigate the posts, the videos. Be sure to learn your way around.

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

5 Ways to Put Your Best Foot Forward When You Join a Membership Site

Sometimes doing what comes naturally is not the best thing to do. If you are in a situation for the first time you may not have any idea about what to do. When you join a membership site you definitely want to put your best foot forward, because you never know where some of the relationships may lead you.

Interact with others. That is so important. You can be seen as another expert. Become the go-to person. It's one of the ways that can build up your own reputation within your specific niche. Answer questions, help people. I know that I participated in lots of membership groups where I was the one who knew the most about a number of different topics.I thought about it and thought about it, finally I decided I'll help these other people, and now, I'm in a membership site where I know the least. I don't feel the least bit disadvantaged, because everyone is helping me, and I don't mind, because I know that I paid it forward.

Show your human side. Share with people about who you are and what you like to do. Perhaps you want to share an experience that's going to help someone learn, but it's also going to show the personal side of you. I have done, personally, quite a few things that helped me learn related to my dogs. I learn a lot from my dogs and do love to share stories about them. Show your human side.

Be careful with your words. You don't want to scare people away with your words or upset them by using vulgar language. An example, I was looking at my niece's posts on Facebook, and she had a friend who was so vulgar and so rude that when I suggested perhaps he wanted to watch his language, I got pretty rude comments back. My niece was smart, she deleted those particular comments and is no longer friends with that person. Be careful with your words.

No hard selling. There is no better way to get yourself alienated in a membership site, then to get in there and try and sell everybody everything right off the bat. It's not about you. It's how you can provide value and how you can provide service. Demonstrate to others that you know what you are talking about. Pretty soon they will be asking you questions about your business.

Create an auto signature. If your membership site has function to post comments or questions, then it's very likely that you can create your own personal profile. Remember to always, always, always create your personal profile and add your website URL. That way, if people like your advice, if they like what you're saying, if they like your questions, they can click on your personal profile, take a look and see what you're all about. That is not hard selling. That is relationship selling and attraction marketing.

Earn Money Online With Forum Marketing

Earning money online is not rocket science. If you can follow simple instructions, then you're able to build a business that can quite easily become your primary income. All you need is a good plan, and to follow that plan through.

For any business to be successful you need customers. When you earn money online those potential customers are called traffic. An online business is just like any other business, you need traffic viewing your offer in order to generate sales, and forum marketing is one of the best ways to generate that traffic.

If you don't have a product to market, then consider Plug-in-Profits. They'll build a website for you, on your own domain, and set up an autoresponder that you own, all done for you. It's definitely worth checking out.

Once you have a product to sell, remember to not try sell on the forums. It's tempting, but don't do it. Ever.

People visit forums looking for answers. They'll usually find a forum post because they've done a search for a specific question, and are looking for an answer. If you try to market to them, they'll just ignore it and move on. Give value. Answer questions. Contribute to the community.

Most forums allow you to add a signature to your posts after you've proven yourself, and this is where you add your link back to your Plug-in-Profit site. Check out other forum users, especially the popular ones with a high rating and prolific posters. See how they've formatted their signatures, and what they've done with their profiles. Copy those who know what they're doing, it's the fastest way to learn.

You want to find 5 or 6 forums in your chosen niche, no more than that at first, and contribute to these. Choose the biggest and busiest forums with the highest pagerank. The pagerank is important because every signature on each of your posts not only directly markets your site, it also adds a very valuable backlink. Backlinks are valued mainly by the relevance of the link to your site's content, and the pagerank of the source site. A link from a PR6 site is worth thousands of PR1 links.

Relevance is also critical. If the site linking to yours has no relevance to your content, then the link will lose almost all of it's value. You need to post to forums in the same niche or at least closely related to your site's content.

That's it. Find a good product. Build a bit of history and then a good signature at a handful of related forums. Post consistently - at least 6 posts on each forum every single day. Every post will market your site to people already interested in your niche and looking for answers, and add a valuable backlink to your site. This backlinking will slowly build your search engine ranking, and the traffic you get from these, and your business will grow.

Build Your Brand - Forums

One very effective way to build your brand and show potential clients your expertise in your chosen field is by participating in online forums. These are a great place to come together with others who share the same interests as you and for you to shine as an expert.

Forums are extremely easy to find whatever line of business you are in just go to Google and type into the search bar your subject and forum, for example "online business forums" if you are an internet marketer, you will find a huge selection to choose from no matter what market you are in.

What I suggest next would be to spend some time reading through some of these potential forums to find which ones may suit your needs the best, it is also worth while seeing which ones are the most active as you want to be in regular contact with other members, not just once in a blue moon!

Most forums will want you to sign up before you can post but usually you can read through most sections in the forums without joining, so you should be able to get a rough idea whether the forum will suit you and your needs.

Once you have picked a few forums that you like, it is worth taking the time to fill in your profile, add your photo - people like to see who they are talking to and it will make you seem more trustworthy.

If allowed add your website URL, you can sometimes add this to your signature, so every time you post people can see your link to your site, which means if you're giving great advice or help people will visit your site to find out more about you and what you offer.

When first joining the forum I think it is always a good idea if they have a welcome to new members board to post there, say hi and introduce yourself, usually you will find most members extremely welcoming as they like new input in their community.

Read any rules and sticky threads about what you can post, then start communicating with people, don't go straight in trying to sell yourself or your business let the regulars get to know and trust you, offer helpful constructive advice and stay out of any heated debates between existing members, as usually there are a couple who will always take little digs at each other, leave it to the moderators to sort out.

Once you have been a member for a couple of weeks and have joined in some conversations it is a good idea to start posting some interesting current topics that are being talked about in your industry, basically getting involved, showing you are up with the current affairs and have an opinion and importantly showing that you are someone that understands your niche!

Benefits of forum posting...

Exposure - Expose yourself and your business to potential new clients.

Gain backlinks to your website - Help improve your ranking in the search engines.

Expertise - Use your knowledge to help others.

Posting in forums really is an easy and fun way to interact with your peers and paying public, so why not get started today? Go and spend a little time researching the forums in your niche, then get posting!