For the online marketer, forum marketing is one of the simplest and most effective investments of time and attention available. No matter what niche you're in, you can do this type of marketing. You'll have a hard time finding a niche without active forums though some will have more than others.
You'll even hear about many marketers who simply skip this marketing method. However, it can help you meet many of your goals as an Internet marketer.
If you want to be viewed as an expert in your niche, you must begin by working to create a good reputation. Lacking either one will render your results to less than desired. You must first, of course, be seen. But, you don't want to spend every waking moment on any one forum. You have other marketing to get done and this is just one part of it.
You can annoy other forum members by making tons of posts in a short time, like in a few hours or so. So time your visits when there are the most members present. Make sure the posts you do provide are quality posts rather than simply confirming what others are saying or going repeating points already made.
Your first step in forum marketing involves building relationships with the members of the forum. This is just another form of networking building. But viewing them as relationships helps put you in a more personable frame of mind. If people feel like they know you; they'll be more confident about doing business with you. Everything you do and say should be done with the overall relationships in mind. Familiarity is one of the most important things you can develop in your attempt to create forum relationships. You have to have a visible and regular presence on the forums in order to develop relationships.
I've been in forums where a few people were chronic thread-starters. Not all forum members appreciate that. But, if you have a lot of good topics for threads, then that's great but just spread them out.
Don't forget to make posts and comment on other threads too. Human nature is the rule of the day when it comes to using forums. But on the other hand, you cannot respond or live your life according Full Article to what everybody else thinks you should do. These are the gray areas in forum marketing you'll experience. Having a variety of ways to share your knowledge is a good approach in forums.
You can think about forum marketing in a similar way as social marketing. And it is easy to see that forum marketing is just another type of social marketing. They are both deeply rooted in relationship marketing, which you should thoroughly understand.