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Posting on forums is like a blind-man’s maxim : You just grope and you will be, more often than not, led to achieve where you want to go. It is one thing to saunter off on your own, fighting your own battle with the rest of the world, breast-stroking to get to the surface of the business waters, gasping for a breath of fresh air and living on the edge. It is self-satisfactory, it makes you sweat and it works you up.
However, it might not be the best possible way to do things. Just as in the offline world – the one we really live in, we take great care to be a part of the society, to be in sync with the ways of the people around us and adopt the culture we had been endowed with, by the community. We gain favour, acceptance, friends and acquaintances, by looking to win the sanction of the society. It is recommended that the same line of thought is adhered to, while conducting business online. Online businesses flourish just as much with the active participation on the part of an entrepreneur in community sites, forums, blogs and other interactive elements of the Internet, as they would have if they were offline and the entrepreneur would have been very active socially and knew a lot people. Social networking is one of the primary ways in increasing business profits but then, it is also a very tedious, slow and painstaking process for the entrepreneur. It goes way beyond invest-and-see-the-returns
Investing time and effort by posting in forums is not marketing. It is just mixing with like minded people. It is building your network. It is getting around to know how people think, act and behave when being confronted with typical problems associated with the particular theme the forum is being dedicated to. Posting in forums or being involved in these community sites or social networking sites provides a seamless platform for like-minded people to get together, collaborate information, motivate them to start, grow and run their businesses much more effectively. It is valuable because the information seeps in through a collective knowledge of thousands of others who have-been-there-done-that.
No one is interested in your product/service, they want to know what’s in it for them! As an entrepreneur, an eager-beaver as you might be to launch your product or services and can’t wait to let people know this great service you provide or that lovely product you deal with. Posting in forums is not just letting people know that you do this and that for so-and-so fee or that you deal with blackberry mobile phones or the next-best-thing-after-ipod. It really repels forum readers when you do this and your reputation is really standing on the jeopardy wagon.
However, if you just melted into the conversation flow, trying to welcome new comers, offer plain and unbiased advice to rookies who had asked questions, answered to specific questions with regards to areas of your expertise and prove yourself to a tremendous source of resources and help, being proffered selflessly, you would automatically make friends, prove yourself to be an expert in your area of operation or business and automatically market yourself as a veritable brand. A name that goes unmatched when it comes to service, depth of knowledge and of course help. You will often notice for yourself that the best forums are really those where the members are passionate about the subject the forum deals with, are successful themselves or at least very enthusiastic about what they do and there is this inherent energy about seeing everyone out there reach the pinnacle of success.
Nevertheless, when it comes to posting on most forums online, please do ensure that you keep yourself as affable as you can, read and remember the rules of the forum ( every forum has them!), respond pro-actively and promptly, never use profanity ( Most forums are moderated anyway and would not allow that to happen!), avoid making controversial statements or sensitive statements with respect to anything personal about any particular forum member. Most of the social nuances in the real world are just as applicable to the online communities. It is still people that we are dealing with and things remain more-or-less the same here too.
It’s all so simple really. You help people achieve success. Be there when they need you and your expertise. Offer solutions to their problems with help of your rich experience and they will love you for it. Because they love you, they will trust you. Since they trust you, they will want to buy from you. If you are the preferred Service Provider, you are in business. Caspice?
How you would be found, traced and linked to, is again technical and your forum signature – the inconspicuous little url link that goes with every post you make would be the little sales guy for you. It would be your business card. The springboard your customers will jump on to meet you. So there you are – Altruistically marketing yourself and also helping others in your way. How much better can it get? If you run a business and it had a name, it would help if you used it as your form-handle ( as the id with which you will known in the community or the forum). You could even get up,close and personal by using your first name or last time if wanted to. It’s basically your call and your attitude which will determine the level of rapport you would want to share with your co-members.
While there are obvious advantages like for forum posting like free link-exchange and an enhanced visibility for your business, a free way to market your expertise and your business services or products, improved online visibility and an ever expanding social network, spread of word-of-mouth and much more, there are some disadvantages too. Posting in forums is boring, for the self-inclined and immensely focused entrepreneur, it might come across as a waste of time and efforts, You might feel like a poor expert feeling likebeing ripped off and being drained off your knowledge. Simply because, posting in forums is not like pay-per-click advertising, you don’t see numbers and money equating the hell out of themselves.
Now, a disgruntled and internally grumpy human that you are as a business person, you really want to keep competition low and beat them. Community activities, posting in forums ( Assuming you involve yourself in a forum which belongs to a certain kind of business in a certain kind of industry) and helping others reach their business goals might be like firing at yourself. Inviting trouble and unwelcome competition. Some of them rookies seem to be smarter and more driven and hence might turn out to be more successful than you could be. How do you counter this? Well, think about it like this. It’s rather ridiculous, but then, think about it as a call to raise your own bar, as a reminder that you are under a constant radar and being monitored continuously. It will mandate you to be on your toes, be pro-active and learn, be faster, meaner and more alert to opportunities. It calls for keeping yourself up-to-date and thinking of more innovative ways to beat the very competition you had helped come where they had to. See the circle? Ignore it and it can be an albatross around your neck.
So the big guy-faster guy-smarter guy- flexible and knowledgeable guy always wins, no matter how many threats befall him. period.
