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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