Forums are a goldmine of information for consumers. It’s also a treasure trove of promotion and branding opportunities for you as an Internet Marketer. You just have to know the best way to participate with your written words.
A forum isn’t where you post tons of hyperlinks in your posts. It’s a place where you share good content and then your signature file gets exposed where your hyperlink happens to reside.
Adding Value to the Forum
When you’re new to a forum, the most important thing you can remember is that you need to add to the discussion, not disrupt it. No one appreciates trolls coming into an environment and causing a scene.
A forum isn’t your personal platform to blog in, though. You can’t just pick any random topic you want to blog about and stick it in a forum that’s pre-populated with a readymade audience.
Before you begin writing forum posts, lurk for a bit to see how the flow of conversation goes in the group. See is there are any “old timers” who have been there awhile who you need to show some respect for, among others.
Don’t barge in and post 20 forum posts back to back. Instead, create valuable content that is relevant to the conversation happening in the group and share it intermittently as you build a reputation for contributing to the environment.
A good forum post should be written kind of like an article or a blog post. You want to personalize it, pull in quotes or other information if applicable, and inspire and motivate the forum members.
Look at the topics already discussed and don’t create a repeat of what they’ve talked about, but something complementary to it instead. You can build off of someone else’s post, but don’t make it a habit or a crutch for your posts.
How to Engage in a Disagreement with Words
Regardless of how good your information is, there will always be someone who ha a bone to pick with you – or your message. Every forum has the grumpy members who like to toss some negativity into the mix.
Instead of fighting with the person when you encounter this type of individual, fight the argument they present instead. If they don’t really have one, then simply ignore it. It’s better to not flame the fire and focus on other positive member contributions.
Watch the Rules Before You Write
Before you do any forum posting, make sure you’ve thoroughly gone through the rules of the forum host. There might be limits on how often you can post, which sections you can post in, what kinds of content you can post, and so on.
As soon as you become a rule breaker, it causes a certain amount of distrust with your audience. You might get banned, and your feelings will be hurt. It starts everything off on the wrong foot.
Combining All of Your Online Writing Efforts
Writing on the Internet is something that you’ll get better with over time. As you study other people’s writing, as you put your own content out there and see what piques the interest of your readers, you’ll gain more confidence.
You’ll begin to get a feel for which online writing requires a more professional tone of voice and when you can relax into a more personal tone. There’s no requirement to have everything perfect before you release it online. Everything can be edited at a later date if you ever discover that you want to take it to a different level.
While you might personally prefer video and audio files over writing, keep in mind that search engines and many human visitors will devour your written content as their preference, so you have to learn how to master it regardless of what you prefer.
Content can convey a wide array of emotions, so the one thing you want to work on is using your words to connect with your audience, since there’s not a human representative standing there with a customer convincing them to buy.
