Can You Get On A Forum?

by Remi Vladuceanu on January 4, 2010


I know it sounds a bit silly but bear with me. “Of course I can!” you’re probably saying right now. But that’s now what I meant exactly.

“Getting” on a forum is much more complex than signing up with a username, an email address and a password. And seems to me a lot of people have trouble understanding the true purpose of a forum and how to be part of it.

The idea of a forum is to share common interests, problems, solutions. Everybody learns the rules, and tries to follow them. You have forums that allow you to display links in your signature and forums that forbid any kind of marketing pitch.

So, how can you approach a forum in terms of marketing your product or service without being using hard pitch to get your message through? In fact, I bet you’ll get banned as fast as you can say “buy” if you decide to go in there and start pitching stuff.

These days seems to me that people are highly irritated to any kind of marketing pitch, and they have to right to be. Everybody tries to sell something.

But there is a way. First, get to know the rules and the community behind the forum. Figure out how things work and how people react. It’s kind of like going to a party but without communicating with anyone at the party.

I know, it’s weird but you have to listen to all the folks at the party in order to find out what kind of jokes they like. And since you are a natural born entertainer, it’s vital to tell the right jokes.

The same principle applies to a forum. First, you have to find out the communities problems in order to come up with a solution. And you will be the one who gives them the solution.

If you have some knowledge on the topic of the forum, it’s even better. If you don’t, you can find information online. There are a lot of places online for free, valuable information on possibly any topic out there.

When you are familiar with the community and with the way things go, start sharing, helping and contributing to the forum. People need to see you contribute before they can trust you. It’s basic common sense stuff.

When you see that people start to recognize the value you put in the community, you will automatically see people asking for more information, sending you PMs and generally seeing you as a genuine expert on the particular subject.

You suddenly realize you developed an interesting relationship with the community. A relationship that seems to be so natural, that you won’t need the hard pitch marketing style any more.

Just don’t abuse the power you have at your fingertips.

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Tagged as: Affiliate Marketing, forum marketing, how to post on forums, online business

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