Forums and Message Boards
How to use them to promote yourself and your business.
by  Linda Lee 

Online Forums are very powerful places to advertise your business or products.

These are sites where people of shared interest meet and are able to discuss and often help each other by answering questions. They are truly people to people places where you

can become part of the community and build trust. Building trust online is a process and
it requires a sincere effort to help others and offer solutions expecting nothing in return.

Tips on how to promote your business using forums:

• Find and join forums that match your business or interests. 
• Build trust on the forums by helping others and answering questions. 
• Add you business URL to your signature.
  You can attract potential clients without even knowing it.  
• Network with other people in the forum 
• Run some joint venture offers with people you meet and trust 

Here is how participating in an online forum helped double my business.

I use a website building program called Xsite Pro. It is a great product but has a bit of a learning curve. When I first started using it, I often found myself at their online user message board and found most of my questions were getting answered. Once I became an expert using Xsite, I started to participate by freely helping answer other peoples questions. What happened is two fold and you must have this to be successful online.

1. I built trust.

2. I freely offered help and solutions.

I now have clients from around the world who found me through the Xsite Pro forum.
I attract people who never would of found me online before.

When you participate in any forum, you must establish yourself first before you start trying to sell something or gain something for yourself.

All message boards/forums allow you to use what is called a “signature”.

This is where you can give a little bio on yourself and your business, you can add a logo or image and you can list links back to your site or even an affiliate product if you support that product in some way.

Every time you leave a post you want to checkmark your signature so it shows up under your comments.

This allows people to click though your link and visit your website and learn more about you.

One word of wisdom to all, avoid arguments and negativity when participating in forums.
This can ruin you in that forum. There are always rude and bitter people who seem to feel that since they semi-anonymous online they can behave badly. This will never help your business. Please stay polite and avoid those situations, for your own sake.

Next when you are new, do not jump into conversations. Here is why, forums have an established hierarchy. People that are regulars know each other and there is a flow to each forum.  The best thing you can do is what is called “lurking”.

Just read threads and posts and familiarize yourself with that forum before jumping in.

Next before you ask a question, please do a search. Most of the time, your question has already been answered at some point. This will help you avoid getting remarks like, “hey newbie, do a search first”, or other remarks that may hurt your feelings.

These are just some forum/message board basics. You will find extended online success if you practice these ideas.

No matter what your business or profession, you can find an online forum and community to help support it, and help yourself at the same time.

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