Marketing Your Business with Forums 101

I remember when forums were THE place for people to market their business. It was like the killer secret that guru business people sold to clients. They’d say, "go onto a forum and link back to your site". Today, the world’s attention has shifted from forums to Twitter, but forums still provide a valuable place to interact… and to market your business.

To market your business in a forum, start by finding forums that are associated with your subject matter. There might be several but choose 2 or 3 of the best ones and sign up. Now, some people might tell you that you need to fill out your profile in detail and include a link back to your website in your profile and in the footer of every post. However, I’d advise that you do it a bit differently. You should think first about adding value and building a reputation.

So, introduce yourself (if they have a place to do so). However, don’t blatantly promote your business. The rule of thumb in the beginning should be to remain understated.

Then, start looking for content to comment on. Find different conversations about your subject matter and participate. Don’t just *bump* the topic, but add relevant insight. Start small and slowly build your reputation on the forum. Plan to comment on 1-3 new conversations each day and continue in 4-10 conversations that have already started. This might take half an hour of your time.

Spend the first week or two just commenting. Don’t do anything else.

Then, after you’ve had plenty of discussion, start a topic of your own. Now, here is where it gets tricky because it can be tempting to put your business’ link in the footer at this point. Instead, you should resist for a little longer. Just start a discussion about a topic that interests you and the forum users.

Then start another one. Then a third. Keep the discussion lively without allowing a lot of conflict.

At this point, you might be ready to add a link back to your website. And, add it into your profile.

Why don’t you do it earlier? Lots of people add their link early but I believe that forum users may resist users who are linking back to their site too early and, in fact, hold them up to a higher standard. (In other words, you can be a pushy forum participator and people will mind less if you’re just doing it because that’s who you are but if you’re a regular forum participant, people might perceive you as pushy simply because you want to talk about your subject matter). So, you need to win their respect first by becoming a valued board contributor. In fact, although this runs counter to accepted wisdom, I believe that the longer you go without a back link, the greater your reputation can be online.

As a valued contributor, you can build up a huge base of interested readers who will then be surprised when they discover that you operate a related site.

Remember, when it comes to forums, seek reputation first and business will follow.