Human Forum Promotion

Google is your friend. It can help you find forums very well. The nice thing is: a forum that gets found is already doing something right to be indexed in the first place. So just google:

• Forum + keyword


• Ning + keyword


• Forum + demographic (moms, dads, business, boys, girls, teens, gays - whatever it is)


• Ning + demographic

That's it really. This should give you a list of forums to sign up for. But before you sign up, check my list of criteria...

The ideal forum has the following characteristics:

- found in google for your keyword (or a wider keyword related to yours)
- open
- has an active community
- has no spam

Found in google for your keyword or something similar
This is actually not a very important characteristic. But do check whether the forum is found for its title: if not, it's not indexed and it will not do you any good for being found in google. It may still be good promotion: if there are enough people who visit the forum regularly, they are likely to click through to your lenses, blog or website.

Any active forum is a good source of traffic for a website in that niche.

Open forum
The ideal forum for online promotion is one that is open. That is: the contents can be seen when you aren't logged in yet. This may change while you are working in it - that's just part of the game. But investing in a forum that isn't open is, in most cases, not a good idea. Unless, again, like facebook groups, there is a lot of traffic there. Ultimately it's not the search engines you should be interested in, but the people. Search engines are just a very effective (and cheap) way to get traffic to your lenses.

An active community
The ideal community is active. But a dormant community may still be a good place to get a few links. Just don't flood it with links - you don't want to invest too much in a community that may be deleted by the manager any moment for lack of success.

No spam
It is very easy to cross the line between online promotion that's appreciated and online promotion that's perceived as spam. But any forum that's inundated with spam before you join is one where the people are likely to be leaving any moment. It's no use investing your time there for the moment. It might be useful to check back in a few months to see if the spam has been cleaned up: that's a sign of active management.

There are two main reasons you don't want your link in a forum with a lot of spam.

1. People will leave


2. Search engines will see your link alongside spammy links, which will make them trust that link less. It's not a sign of quality for your lens - and google may devalue it for that reason (especially if you have no quality links to your webprojects to counter balance).

Most forums will be glad to have another active member. Active members can afford to do some self promotion, but how much is appreciated depends on the forum.

Start with the obvious:

• Fill out your profile information.


• Put links to your blog, lensography and/or website on your profile page if possible


• Upload an avatar

Fill out your profile information
This step should be easy for anybody who makes a living online. Try to be unique. Don't have the same profile information on every forum you frequent. Think about the style of that particular online community and weigh it in on how you introduce yourself. The style may vary, the details you mention or leave out may vary.

Present that aspect of yourself that fits that community.

Put links in your profile
Nings have a place to put an RSS feed.
There you can put your blog, but also a squidoo RSS feed (your lenses or squidcasts for instance).

Again: choose an RSS feed that fits THAT community.

Upload an avatar
People who do online promotion at various places probably have several standard avatars to choose from. The following may help you choose which you want to put in:

1. On Ning avatars are usually faces, so go with that as well


2. You could also go with a logo you use on your website

You don't want to have too many different avatars on different online properties, because you want people to recognize you.

I think the tendency of the web is to become more personal, so I go with a picture on most new networks I join these days. Whatever you upload, make sure it looks good. It's the first impression you make. I don't mean you need to look like a model. Just pick a picture where the lighting is such that the wobbles under your chin don't stand out too much. And yes, if you make a living online (or want to) it also makes sense to go to a photographer if necessary.

Remember though: this is online networking. People usually aren't looking for you as their next manager. So while the picture needs to look good, don't go for suit and tie unless you genuinely look best in THAT suit and tie. It could just as easily be a holiday picture.

In practice it's a balancing act: a picture has the disadvantage of becoming outdated. On the other hand, logos change as well.

I still have a logo on various online forums, like twitter, and that works too. Find your own style.

Once you have an avatar, don't change it too often. People will recognize you by your avatar. Changing it will only confuse them. It's your brand - don't change it unless you have VERY good reason to.

Check recent threads and join the conversation

You just joined an online forum. Go check out recent threads and blogposts. Join in: give your opinion. Don't bother with links just yet (most forums won't allow you to post links the first 10 posts or so anyhow). Just add your voice, show you're a human being and establish yourself as an active presence.

Adding friends

Depending on the type of forum you can add friends or not. On Ning for instance you CAN add friends. In fact, friends you've added on other Nings will show up on your friends list right away. Very useful: how much overlap is there between the various Nings you are on? Too much overlap and it becomes a bit useless for the promotion side of things.

I usually don't start adding friends right away. I'm a bit shy in real life, I'm the same way online. I start out slow. Just getting to know the vibe. The active members on the forum will come to you soon enough and add you as a friend.

On ning you can add blogposts and forum posts.

If you have a subject in your niche that always gets a discussion going (and you made a lens about it) link to your lens & start that discussion in the forum. Or on your Ning blog. It depends on the specific ning if the blog option is promoted. If it isn't, go for the forum.

Don't bother expecting people to click through to your hey monkeybrain lens. They won't. I've made that mistake. Just be glad that they are responding at all.

This has the advantage that you can post the same link & text on several forums, and yet google will see totally different pages: because the responses are different. The more different the threads end up looking, the better it is for your online promotion: it will not look like duplicate content despite the fact that the original post can be almost identical on several forums.

I do this a lot: post almost the same post on several forums. I do make sure however to:
Customize the text to that specific audience. In most cases that involves checking whether the title and text fit. Sometimes it is a mere matter of changing the keywords a bit.

Respond to people who respond. This should be self-evident. Don't post and run. Be a good host to your discussion. Thank people for their insight or respond to it if you don't agree.

Be part of the conversation. Again: having a different conversation around the same topic is good for your online profile. It means the pages will look different enough to google to index them all and have them show up in search results.

While the forum residents may not click through to your lens or blog - people who come across that post in google just may.

This method can work on any forum. I use it a lot on nings at the moment, but it would work anywhere online really.