Forums... good for nothing, full of shady characters offering bad
manners and even worse advise. But not everything is as bad as it seems.
Plant your seeds in the forum chat manure and get ready to harvest some
great ideas.
Flames, people bashing, biased opinions... ah yes, freedom of the press.
Isn't that what makes America great? Usually, the poorest quality question
that comes across my desk starts with, "I read in a chat forum that..."
Sheesh, my advice is don't hang around forums and newsgroups, and don't
believe what you read. They aren't exactly CNN for news if you know what I
mean. They're more like the Star Gossip Weekly.
Forums can be useful for one thing. Info and opinion harvesting. Getting
ideas for new software, products and services. Finding out the "best of" in
any category... but we'll talk more about that later.
Another question I get all the time is, "Help, I started a forum fire and
everyone is flaming me. I'm getting bashed on all sides and people are
saying really mean things about me. Can you come to my defense and help
me?"
In fact, I get this question so often, I've created a stock response that I
just copy and paste as a reply...
Sorry, I don't do chat rooms and forums. My last post was to Compuserve's
desktop publishing forum back in 1988.
Forums are like an addictive substance. A breeding ground for the idle and
unemployed, trading misinformation and inflated opinions. Rarely is
anything rooted in fact or testing. Face it, if they knew what they were
doing, they'd be running their businesses, not hanging around in forums.
Especially beware of any forums where people can hide their real
identities. Imagine an island (the forum) where no one knows who you are,
or what your name is. Now imagine there are no rules and you can do or say
whatever you want. There are no consequences for your actions.
Certain people will form loose bands or gangs that go around bashing and
killing everything that washes up on their island. Once dead, they go off
looking for the next thing to bash and kill.
Remember the book Lord of the Flies? Perfect forum example. ;-)
The best way to stop a forum fire is just like a real fire. Starve it of
fuel (stop participating) and it will soon die out and be forgotten.
So let the small minded be, get off their island, and move on to kinder
more gentle waters. Life is too short to hang around in forums, especially
when there are so many legitimate sources of good information out there....
Ok, back to the real article.
As a little sidebar here, not all forums and information exchanges are
created equal. Unlike the public forums mentioned above, many "forums" are
high quality moderated message boards, or located inside of private sites.
If you want to get involved with moderated boards, check the background of
the people running it. Make sure they have expertise in your field of
interest.
For example, if you want marketing advice, make sure the moderators have
real world experience in testing & tracking, direct response letters, copy
writing, sales, advertising, design, branding and bringing new products to
market.
Same thing if you want to get SEO (search engine optimization) advice. They
should at least be certified by the SEO Workshops or have a proven track
record. You'll want to visit their references and witness their clients
coming up in the top search results for specific keywords.
Ok, now that we've established that moderated boards and private sites are
different from f r e e for all forums and newsgroups, here's what those
nasty forums are really good for... it's exactly what they are bad for...
huh? Yes, biased opinions.
Let me explain... When used against itself - the biased opinions - the
strength of the forum turns into a powerful information mining tool.
For example, a couple of years back, my friend Patrick Anderson had to
promote a last minute concert for singer songwriter Paul McCartney. He had
only three weeks to do it. All he did to get started, was ask a few
questions in the forums and newsgroups.
He said that he was new to the internet and asked, "Where are the "best"
music web sites on the web. Are there any popular Beatles or Paul McCartney
sites that are "better" than the others?"
What he got was a flood of information, with several people naming the same
web sites as being better and more popular. Then he checked their traffic
with Alexa and phoned the top traffic sites with a little offer.
He told the music site owners that he had several tickets to the concert,
and asked if they would be willing to give them away on their web sites. He
also suggested that not only could they give away the tickets, but if they
had a draw, and people entered to win, the site owners could quickly build
a list of subscribers.
(Note that he picked up the phone and talked to them personally. He simply
told them in a very disarming way, what it was that he had to offer, and
how it would benefit them.)
The result? A sold out concert with less than three weeks of promotion.
Patrick looked like a genius (He is actually). And there were several happy
web site owners. All thanks to the opinions of people in forums.
Another story involves my friend Jonathan Mizel. He was lurking around
(reading but not posting) in the forums and noticed a trend.
At the time, pop ups were all the rage with online marketers. Pop ins, pop
outs, delayed pops, pop unders... sheesh, there seemed no end to what
people would try. But it was also very confusing.
There was no standard information available, no javascript programming
examples, no how-to's available. After hundreds of requests for sample
codes and information, a frustrated lurker posted, "Why doesn't someone
make a pop-up course or software to make these pop-up windows easier?"
It was just the spark of an idea that Jonathan needed, and within weeks, he
had his pop-up making software and manual for sale. Needless to say he made
tens of thousands of dollars in a very short time, once again, all thanks
to opinions on the forums.
Now imagine going to an SEO forum an asking the following question. "I have
my web site finished and am now ready to hire an optimization company. Who
in your opinion are the "best" five optimizers and why do you feel that
way?"
Asking for opinions in an SEO forum is like waving a red flag in front of a
bull. Now you can just sit back and watch the sparks fly. But what you'll
get out of it, is a list of the top optimization firms and reasons why
people choose to be evangelists for those brands.
Once you have a list of SEO firms, you can check their sites for lists of
clients they've optimized for. You can take a look at the html source code
and linking structure of all those clients. Once you do that, you'll have a
pretty good idea how to optimize for that particular product category or
topic.
A favorite idea generator of mine, is to get other people to do the work
for me. I post business and software related questions like... "If you
could have one piece of software to enhance your productivity, what would
the software do?"
Depending on the nature of the discussion group, the answers will vary
widely. But what you get in return, is a list of software that people would
be willing to purchase if it was made available.
So there you have it. Forums, the good, the bad and the ugly. Do you know
the "best" authority on a topic? Do you know where the "best" web sites
are? Do you know what software people will buy? Now you know how to find
out.
Simply ask your questions in forums and collect your data. Chances are, if
you collect enough opinions, you can jump start your search for "the best
of" in the right direction. Or who knows... you might just come up with the
next best-selling software.
by Michael Campbell
Author
of....
Revenge of the Mininet...
Advanced search engine linking strategies
and diagrams for increased revenue.
Clickin' it Rich... The complete
work from home business training
system for new affiliates.
Nothing but 'Net... Simple
internet marketing
strategy that made $750,000 in less than a year.
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