Internet Marketing Strategy: Forum Marketing

Having created a successful forum at Black Internet Marketing Forum.com and being a contributing member to several popular forums, I understand that forum marketing provides outstanding opportunities to market and promote products and services at no cost. However, free promotion has to be done with proper protocol and respect for other members in the community or you will be appropriately banned in short order.

DON'T BE AN OBVIOUS AMATEUR
One of the first mistakes you should avoid is not utilizing your forum profile feature to the fullest. In order to be an effective forum marketer, your profile must be interesting. Add an avatar that can be a picture of you or something that relates to the forum topic. Pictures and graphics make your profile personal and invite dialogue and discussion with others.

Next, answer the profile questions. If there is a field to include your website or blog, make sure that you use the opportunity to create a link to your best site or a site with a direct relationship to the forum with a call to action once visitors land at the address. If the forum allows visitor messages, be the first to post a message to yourself that provides visitors with more information about you and your background. This is a perfect opportunity to introduce yourself on your profile page and offer others a sense of your expertise and initiatives.

After you've completed your profile, create a signature that is simple and to the point. A good model is your website address spelled out with a clickable link to that address underneath followed by a catch phrase--three lines and you're done. Check the forum rules to make sure that links in signatures are allowed and if so, don't abuse the signature feature with a ton of unnecessary or self-promotional content or animated graphics.

If there is an Introduce Yourself thread, have the courtesy to review some of the best submissions for examples of what is expected and make your introduction your first post on the forum.

Finally, review the posts that have been made over time along with the most recent posts and start making posts that answer questions. Don't be tempted to start mentioning your website or posting self-serving links. You need to build credibility as a contributing member of the community by being helpful to others, answering questions, and posting an occasional thought starter which may spark a good discussion and provide you and others an opportunity to share more more helpful tips.

BECOME AN EXPERT
What's important in the early stages of your forum membership, is to establish your expertise and resourcefulness. You want to build a reputation as the the best person to connect with for information about niche area of expertise. Once you've made a name for yourself, other members of the forum will pay special attention to your posts and look forward to your contributions.

As you begin to become known around the forum and as your popularity grows, people may begin to look for you outside of the forum to check out your products and services. It's very important to use the same name that you use on the forum on your other projects and initiatives. This increases the likelihood that you can be found when others look for you on search engines or on social networks.

When forum members become especially popular and where they make tremendous contributions to a forum, it's not uncommon to see forum owners partnering with they key contributors in joint venture arrangements for the benefit of both parties. You could be approached by the forum owner or you can offer a joint venture or affiliate opportunity to the owner yourself. Forum owners would be very interested in any special deal where they receive exclusive discounts for their members or a higher commission than your other affiliates.

BE A USER, NOT AN ABUSER
Please follow proper forum protocol and respect for member privacy. Do not send private messages to people with whom you have no relationship and when you have made no contributions to the forum. The only time you should self-promote is if you are asked for a specific recommendation and you product fits the bill or if you are engaged in some effort that deals with a topic of particular interest to the forum and its members. Even then, your sales pitch should be less about your own profit objective and more about what you can offer the forum community.

Remember, by being a key contributor to a forum, you build expertise, credibility, and goodwill. Give freely and frequently by sharing informational resources that will help others to meet their own objectives and you won't have to worry about making money. Never send or post spam. Others will come to you willingly and eagerly as loyal customers based on the great service your provide without the expectation of anything in return.