Successful Forum Marketing

Forums are communities online in the form of message boards. You can post your own topics or answer to others posts. There are different forums to almost any topic online, from fishing and golf to forum marketing and business opportunities.

Forum marketing can be one of the most targeted methods online, and it's so easy to do. You just sign up for a forum and start posting your ads, right?

WRONG!

A lot of people are commonly doing that mistake. They go into different forums and post their ads all around or they us some sort of submitter to do it for them. If you want to get banned from a lot of forums and loose credibility at the same time, this is the way to do it.

The power of forum marketing is that its one of the best ways to build relations and a reputation online. Do not start by posting your ads everywhere in the forum. Actually, don't post any ads at all (except in the classifieds sections, but this is not where the power lays).

Become part of the community, ask questions, answer questions, make friends and discuss topics that interest you (and your business). Show people that you're not just another hyped up guy trying to earn money on tricking them into something. Be seen as a real, trustworthy person that is open to communicate with people. This shows you will be a good sponsor if they want to join your company.

1. BE SEEN!
Be sure to use an avatar (a picture of yourself or a logo). This can be added to
your profile and will be shown beside all of your posts. This image will make it
easy for people to recognise you and gives them a feeling of knowing you after
seeing it all over.

2. BE PROFESSIONAL!
Do not use foul language or let your emotions get ahead of you. Be clear about
your meanings, but try basing them on facts.

3. BE POSITIVE!
Do not talk badly about other people businesses unless they are proven scams
(be humble). In internet marketing, do not make your company look good by talking
bad about the competition. Talking bad about other online businesses will only
cast a shadow over the whole internet marketing concept (including your business).

There are two places you should have links back to you own business.

The first place to add your link is in your profile. It's a perfectly legit and normal place to have a link to your main business.

The second place is in your signature. This is also done through your profile in the given forum, but be sure to read the forum rules before doing this (some forums do not allow ads in your signature). The signature is added to the end of all your posts with a line in between. Every time you communicate on the forum, your site will be promoted without you looking like an aggressive promoter.

You should make it a short description of your business linking to your business.

SIDE NOTE: Forums do not use HTML to ad colour, font, etc. to the text, but a code called bbc. An easy program to help you make the text and effects you want in this code is FASS. It's free and can be found here: http://www.pawsoft.com/?p=fass/home

If you really want to make progress you should also track your links in the signature. Many online businesses have tracking software for this purpose. TrafficWave is one of them.