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As with any business, you must get your name in front of buyers eyes. Otherwise, you are just sitting around waiting to close up shop. Advertising your business does not cost any money, but you do have to work at it and be creative. Some of the best forms of free advertising is article marketing, posting comments on blogs and forum marketing. Forum marketing can be very beneficial to your business, providing that you do it properly.
Create Your Profile
Every forum board has a user control panel. This is where you fill in all of your contact details, information about you and where you set up your signature file. Fill all of the information in to best of your ability. Include a picture of yourself as the avatar or profile picture. People respond much better when they see a face behind the persona. Fill in your Twitter, Facebook and other social media information. This provides potential clients another way of following you. In your signature file place your name and below your name a link to your website. Don’t try to be cute with the signature file. You are a professional, so your signature file should look professional.
Post To The Introduction Forum First
before you post anywhere else on the forum, introduce yourself in the New Introduction section first. Almost every forum has a spot where new people can introduce themselves. Do not advertise in this post. Simply just include a Hello and some pertinent information. I usually write something like, “Hi I am Ken and I am a freelance writer and marketer. I look forward to sharing ideas and learning from others here.” Cheesy? yea, but effective. All new forum members are considered spammers because quite frankly most new forum members spam the forums with their links. Posting to the intro section without straight out advertising is a good way to get your new fellow forum members to warm up to you a bit.
Participate Regularly
make it a point to post to each forum at least once a day. Again, do not advertise. Just simply offer useful feedback to the community. Give value and thought in your responses to threads within the forum. The more useful, informational your participation is the more you are seen as an authority and not as someone just trying to gain business. People that are in need of your services or product will naturally click on the link in your signature file. Also by contributing regularly you show that you are not there just to put up a link. You are there to be a part of the community.
Forum marketing is very effective when you are a contributing member offering value to the community. It is a good idea to find at least 10 high ranking forums in your niche to participate in. Not only does this create traffic from forum members, but each post also creates a backlink to your site if the forum is a do-follow site. This helps your search engine rankings. Writing for money is about building relationships and trust with your customers. Participating in forums is an excellent way to build those relationships.
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