7 Biggest Forum Marketing Mistakes Bloggers Make and How To Fix Them
Forum Marketing is a technique where you post in forums, help people, gain trust and convert those people who you helped into your blog readers.
How do you Find Forums that are Related to your Blog?
If you know how to do this, I suggest you to skip this paragraph and start reading the next. For others, go to Google and do a search for “your niche forum” without quotes so for example, I run www.contractphoneswithfreegifts.com, so I’d search for “mobile phone forums” or “technology forums”.
Once you are done with finding forums, read this post for the common mistakes people make when posting on forums. To those people who are already using forums, you might be making these mistakes. It is never late to correct your mistakes.
Source: Authority Blogger Forum (one of my favorite forums) owned by Chris Garrett.
Okay. You are set now? Let’s see the mistakes bloggers commonly make.
7.Not Posting Regularly
Confession: I don’t post regularly in forums and I want to change myself when it comes to consistency.
People will forget you if you are not posting regularly. Many people (including me) post to forums like crazy for the first few days after joining. After a week, they completely forget about the forum. Bad marketing.
Building trust doesn’t happen in one day or one week. It takes more than that. I know people in some forums who are regular posters for 3-4 years. These people are trusted by everyone in the forum. If they have a product and they say one word about it, everyone will buy it. That is the power of building trust in forums. You can even sell your service easily once you build trust.
How to fix it:
Make a commitment to posting certain number of replies in forums or have a fixed amount of time you want to spend in forums.
6. One Line Posts
One line posts are same as one line comments. You cannot build trust or convey what you want to say in one line. Unless you are thanking someone or congratulating someone for what they have done, you can’t help in one line.
If building trust in one line was possible, people would start using twitter more. If you are representing a company and you are answering a quick question, one line is fine. But most companies would send email detailing their one line answer.
How to fix it:
When someone asks a question, elaborate on your answer. You don’t have to write it very big. Elaborate till you feel the other person will understand what you have written.
5. Copy and Paste
Some people create threads by copy and pasting the same message in different forums. Just like you, the people in your niche visit many forums and if they see you creating the same message over and over in all the forums, they’ll start ignoring you. I don’t see why you want to ask the same question in all the forums unless it is not answered.
How to fix it:
Always create a thread in only one forum. If it is not answered, start a thread in another forum. Even if you are giving a valuable tip, please don’t copy paste. Make small changes to the post and the headline. Make it look like you have written again.
4. Irrelevant Posts
There is no better way to destroy your personal brand than by writing irrelevant posts. This is not very common but I know some people make this mistake. Why in the world do you talk about a method which pays you a huge one cent for every ad you click in a golfing forum? I understand it is a lot of money. If you are making one cent for every ad click, then you will be living an “internet guru” lifestyle. I can see that you want others also to be rich like you, but please, not in a golfing forum.
How to fix it:
Stop posting irrelevant things and start contributing to the quality of the forum.
3. Affiliate Links
This is the most common mistake people make. When you go to forums and have affiliate links in your signature, it will mostly lead to your profile getting banned. Read the TOS of the forum before you start using it. Some forums allow you to use affiliate links in signature but when you have affiliate links in signature, you cannot build trust. If you link to your own product, it is different and there is no wrong in doing it. Only when it comes to affiliate links, the problem starts. See forums as twitter. In twitter, will you post affiliate links? If you do, how many people unfollow you?
You can also imagine a real life situation. You talk to a stranger. He asks you a question and you say buy this product under my referral and it will solve your problems. What are the chances that the stranger will buy the product? Zero possibility unless you are an extremely good sales person. But then if you are a good sales person, you would obviously not need these tips.
How to fix it:
Instead of posting affiliate links, send the people to your blog. Give them loads of free information and then sell.
2. PM Spam
You already know what PM spam is and there is 99.98% chance that you are victim of PM spam if you are a member of the digital point forum.
What is PM spam?
(for those who don’t know or not a member of DP forum)
PM is short for private messaging. When you register in a forum, you are given an inbox without email ID. Anyone can send you private message in a single click. This makes it easy for people to spam.
When you send me a PM selling your product, you are helping me by filtering yourself out of people who I trust.
How to fix it:
If you have a product and you want to promote, contribute quality posts to the forum and have a link to your product (not affiliate) in your signature. This will help you sell your product. Don’t waste your time sending a PM to all the members. No one will buy it. Period.
1. Being Rude
I see arguments in forums very often. Arguments are fine as long as they are within certain limits. If you are rude, I’m not going to click on your signature link and come to your blog. You may think I’m the only one who is not going to visit your blog. But mind you, almost everyone who is reading it will lose the trust they have in you slowly.
Thanks to the forum scripts, most of them don’t allow swear words. If you use them, it won’t get published. But hey, we are people who have been using internet since it came into existence. We know how to bypass everything. So what we do is, we use asteriks. Simple. Let me tell you again, being rude is not good for your personal brand.
How to fix it:
Simple. Care for everyone in the forum. When you care, you won’t be rude.
I suggest you to use forum marketing. It not only gets new readers to your blog but also helps you become a better blogger.
Do you make any of the above forum marketing mistakes? I feel guilty of not regularly posting in forums. I have been working on it though. Please share your views and also some other mistakes people make in forums.
