One often overlooked form of social media marketing is visiting forums. An active membership in two or three forums is enough to help your business along. The key to social media marketing through forums is to build relationships with the other forum members by entering into dialog and conversation and being of general help. It really doesn’t take a lot of time.
In just 1 or 2 hours per week you can build solid relationships with other forum members and drive traffic to your website.
Most forums require you to sign up with a user name and password. After doing so, fill out the profile information about yourself and create a signature link that links to your blog and company website. I prefer sending new traffic from forums to my blog because a blog is less threatening. You are not necessarily trying to close the sale on the blog. Your blog is there to drive traffic to your website where you’ll close the sale. But the key to getting other forum participants to visit your blog is to be of some assistance to them.
There are three general levels of forum interaction:
- Experienced Veteran – These people have been around a long time and probably know more than you do. Don’t step on their toes. Be respectful. You can disagree, but don’t make waves, especially if you are talking to a forum moderator. Remember, what comes around goes around.
- Newbie – Also called noobs. These people are not only new to the forum, but may also be fairly new to the Internet. They may slip up from time to time so go easy on them. They are potential customers, but they are also so human so they deserve respect and kindness. Be a big help to them by sharing what you have learned through your experience and you can develop relationships with these people over time.
- Adolescent/Young Adult – I’m not talking about actual adolescents or young adults. This personality type may be new to a forum or may have been around longer than the noob but not as long as the veteran, or they may be somewhat experienced with Web interaction and be totally new to the forum. Don’t assume that because a person has just a few posts on a forum that they are totally new to the Internet. They may actually be a seasoned veteran who does a lot of lurking. Be respectful. Share your knowledge, but also be willing to learn.
Forum interaction is a form of social interaction. People join forums primarily for the community. Many forums have taken strict measures against any perception of spam or blatant advertising. For that reason, you’ll want to be subtle. If you have events or specials you want to promote, find out if a forum has a special thread set aside for that. If not, don’t push it. Many times you can drop hints about certain things if it fits in well with the topic of a thread. Be careful that you don’t overdo it or come across too pushy. Just hang out and make friends.
