
When you think about online marketing, you typically think about content, social media, and SEO. But one area of online marketing that is often overlooked and under discussed is forum marketing. Forums are essentially social media groups without the association of a social network, filled with people who passionately love the forum topic. In this post, I’m going to give you a quick guide to how you can use forums to market your small business.
1. Find forums where your customers are engaged.
The first step to forum marketing for your small business is to find forums where your customers are actively engaged in regular discussions. I’d suggest starting with one forum just to get the hang of things, and then move on to others.
The easiest way to find forums is to search keywords pertaining to topics your customers would be talking about. For example, let’s say that you are a realtor. You might want to look for forums about the area you work in, such as Arizona forums. This will lead you to the City Data forums, a huge community discussing moving and relocation to specific areas. As a realtor, you will likely find lots of people who are house hunting that you could sell a home to.
Here are a few more examples:
If you are a wedding photographer, a search for wedding forums will lead you to the forums on WeddingWire, The Knot, Project Wedding, and others where wedding vendors can help brides in their area with their wedding planning questions.
If you are a social media consultant, a search for social media forums will lead you to the Warrior Forum where social media consultants can answer questions about social media for people who may need their services.
If you sell jewellery, a search for fashion forums will lead you to The Fashion Spot, a forum where you can talk accessories with fashion lovers who might want to purchase from your collection.
Before you create your forum account as a newbie, be sure to browse through the forum to ensure that there are lots of recent conversations to participate in and that those conversations are full of real discussion. Some forums are not moderated, and thus may look like they have lots of discussion, but are in fact full of nothing but spam.
Note that the point to finding forums your customers engage in is not to sell them on the forums. It’s just to get exposure for your business to the right people. I’ll discuss how that works later in the post.
Details
- Publication Date
- Sep 11, 2021
- Language
- English
- Category
- Business & Economics
- Copyright
- All Rights Reserved - Standard Copyright License
- Contributors
- Edited by: Chris Matt
Specifications
- Format