How to engage

Forumsfor your brand

You may hear about

Forum is OLD,

DYING, OUTDATED& No one uses themthey never evolve

Actually they just Do not understand forums

Do need to make a bold statement to appear confident

Really??

Seeding forum still works. Why? Place your audiences

Raise their concerns

(Eager to) Get suggestions / solutions

Share their thoughts

Customers engage and believe the conversations there

Once one question posted, a bunch of answers given out for help

Good guys with high reputation

Frequency of visits ~ like ~ frequency of advertisements

Powerful recommendations

Sound thoughts?!You may say

Yes to FORUMs

So what I could expect

Diversified activities on forums to ..Spread out

What your products are

Product features

Product benefits

Call-to-action

First

understand forum

Power of forums Search engine

Typing a question into Google.. (or keyword, topic, etc.)

There is a fair chance that you will end up at a forum

Once a post is there, it exists there forever

Online community dedicated ( to your industry) Engaging in a meaningful, passionate way

Engaging round specific topics and interests

(Find more on your own )

Nature of forums & Structured Online Communities Community space, not your space -> learn forum guidelines

Each forums as its own country -> different rules to follow

Ehh.. Wanna do it your way? Ready to get

Backlash

Tarred as a spammer

Forgiveness? Not on forums

Forum Engagement To contribute forums

Not to take advantage of it

Not to siphon people off to your website

Then

Join in&

Contribute toforums

To get what you aim to

Pre-action Find the right forums

Right audiences

Active forums (# members, # posts on daily basis, etc.)

Ignore forums overrun by spam

Avoid forums hosted by competitors

Guidelines are your friend

Know a vision statement for the community

(what is allowed, what isn’t, what sort of people will be welcome and attracted to forums)

Respect it, learn from it

Observe the Norms

How top posters share, how others contribute

How staff members share

Action Create an account as soon as possible

Signature: where you link and identify yourself

Contribute ON the community

Contribute good stuff

Notice:

Don’t (be the first) to mention your stuff

Ever in doubt, ask the staff

Why to follow them? Do it yourself, you will experience the reasons

do use the forum more than spreading links

communicate with other forum membersactively participate in forum discussions

stick in there for the long haul

SUM UPdon’t spam forum users with tons of links

join a forum just to advertiselie about products or services

break the rules

Reference http://

onlinebusiness.about.com/od/gettingtrafficmarketing/tp/forum-marketing.htm

http://www.blueglass.com/blog/forum-marketing/

http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/how-to-engage-in-online-forums-for-your-brand/

And my own experience

Industry: Software Testing

Business model: B2C & B2B

Products: qTrace, qTest (www.qasymphony.com)

Forums: sqaforums, softwaretestinghelp, qualitytesting (to name a few)

Contact for sharing and learning: kynam112111@gmail.com