Here are 7 reasons you should consider being an active participant in Internet marketing forums. Each of the reasons is a valuable step in the entire process of becoming a successful Internet marketer. If you can master the entire process, you will have a distinct advantage over your competition in all your future ventures.
1. Copy Other Successful Marketers and Their Techniques
The number one reason is copying those that are already successful. This may sound unethical, but it’s simply researching what works. What better place to find what’s working than from those already succeeding? This doesn’t mean go to a website and download their pictures or copy their text! It means reverse engineer their strategies and then use that knowledge to form your own.
2. Ask for Tips, Advice, and Learn from Other Marketing Forum Participants
Always ask questions! You will get bad advice, advice that borders on good, and then that one hidden gem which will make you understand what your goals are just a little bit better. Be careful, there is often misleading advice mixed in with the sincere. Always remember that internet marketing forums are filled with your competition! Not everyone will be there to help you.
3. Make Friends and Form Partnerships with Marketing Forum Participants
Making friends is an ideal way to gain information on how to be a successful marketer. Through internet marketing forums you can make friendships and form partnerships. You’re many times more likely to get credible information from a friend and partner than you are a stranger or competitor. If you can’t beat them, join them!
4. Stay Current with the Latest Developments in Your Industry
Are you up-to-date with the latest trends in Internet marketing and SEO? Do you know exactly how to deal with the latest Google update? It is impossible to stay on top of trends by yourself. You need to be connected. An Internet marketing forum is an ideal venue to find out the most recent news in your industry.
5. Learn How to Start Your Own Forum
I use a web hosting company for one of my websites. I noticed that they run probably the most popular web hosting forum online. It is not obvious that they are the owners, however there are links to their service. How convenient having everybody interested in web hosting, flocking to your web hosting forum for more information. If you want to dominate your niche, it might be a good marketing strategy to start your own forum in your niche. By participating in a good marketing forum you can see how they are run and get an idea on how to run your own forum.
6. Having Fun!
Participating in online forums can be fun and even addictive! You are learning the latest news, getting questions answered, asking questions and engaging in friendly online debates. Blogs like this one are great, but they generally tend to be more one way conversations with a few comments. Forums allow you to start the conversation. You have an equal voice with the person who started the post. Forums are generally much more interactive than blogs which usually translates into more fun!
7. If for No Other Reason, Get Back Links From Your Forum Signature
The final reason and the most obvious reason is to get a few back links. Put the link to your website in your signature and make a few posts every day to keep that link out there for search engines and visitors. Building back links can be difficult, so if you can get a few for free, go for it!
Matthew Meyer is the webmaster for The Free Ad Forum Internet Marketing Forum and
Free Classified Ad Site.
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Thanks for this useful information. I happen to be active in only 2 internet marketing forums and one thing I noticed is that there is always competition and if you are not careful you can easily be disappointed by negative comments.
When I am taking one’s idea, I always consider facts involved in the advice but not opinions. I always consider the authority behind the advice giver.
What I would further love to here from you is how many forums should one join for forum marketing to be effective? Thanks for sharing.
I uaually use the internet to find all my SEO advice but i’ve never joined a forum, maybe its about time i did can you or anyone else reccomend a good one
I used to contribute in many forms but i was not aware that forums can give us so much benefits. I will follow your points and most importantly “Copy Other Successful Marketers and Their Techniques”
Participating in forums may help your own website page rank as well.
Great article. When I first opened my business in 2008, suggestion #1 was my best resource. I identified a few small businesses in my marketplace that seemed to be aggressive marketers.
The KEY was to find a model that was small and local. Coping the efforts of Ford Motors or Coca Cola was not within reach! Identifying affordable local marketing opportunities was the goal!
I took stock of what they were doing to promote themselves. Then tried to incorporate as many of those steps as time and money would allow.
I now try to share some of those insights with other small business owner that I meet, either in person or online.
I run a blog and a forum and I find the forum more interesting because it is much more interactive. Anybody can initiate topics and questions. If you really want to learn try answering questions on an seo forum. If forces you to think and research.
What author has said is absolutely correct. I learnt lot of info from marketing and other forums. It is really worth spending time to learn more day to day.
Hi! Starting your own forum is a diffucult task, have to choose software, find good hosting (until you run your own reliable servers), find good moderators (you cannot do everything if forum become popular one). So, I would like to stick to the well estabilished good forums, get fun, get some information and get some back links, as well.
I had put my name down on two forums to do with real estate in Spain (my line of work but up till now have been bombed by such a deluge of comments that i have abstained from making comments and even from reading the (there are only 24 hours in a day). I suppose that after what I have read here I shall have to start..
Thanks Mathew.
Very good article. I have been doing Marketing both offline and online now for 10 years. Its always good to refresh the brain on the basics. How soon we forget. Thanks for the article!
this post is very informative so thank for posting this. I’ve been in the Internet marketing business for three months now and your opinion about joining internet marketing forum is something that I will keep in mind. Although, I think that it should also not be limited to internet marketing forums; you can also try SEO forums and that’s exactly what Im doing from the beginning and I totally agree with you that you will learn the best practices of other practitioners in the biz just by joining these forums.
Now, we can use Facebook Group to become a forum
always connected and there is notification