You’re probably familiar with social media marketing–using social media to build your business’s reputation, connect with customers, and draw traffic to your site. Social media is a worthwhile aspect of off-page SEO, which is all about building credibility with Google and your audience.
But the benefits of social media marketing don’t end with platforms like Facebook. Forums are an often overlooked type of social media that may have as much or more benefit for your marketing efforts. Let’s explore forum marketing and its possibilities, as well as how to do it effectively.
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The Overlooked Opportunities of Forum Marketing
Forums are online discussion boards. They allow users to share information and discuss their specific topics of interest, from technology trends to niche hobbies. Some of the forums we all recognize are Reddit and Quora, which have subforums for every topic you can think of. Alternatively, countless dedicated forums exist to focus on only one topic.
These forums are a type of social media but tend to get less attention from businesses engaging in social media marketing. Yet they offer unique opportunities. You can find forums or subforums for topics within your industry, making it easy to hone in on your target audience. And Google is giving more credit to forums than ever.
Benefits and Outlook of Forum Marketing
Forums have been around as long as the internet, but they’re not fading out–they’re growing stronger. Reddit is the third most visited website in the United States, trailing only Google itself and YouTube. It’s no surprise, then, that Google and Reddit recently struck a mutually beneficial deal. Reddit lets Google train AI with its content, and in exchange, Google boosts Reddit in search results.
Reddit now shows much higher in search results. It goes beyond Reddit, though. Google search result pages often feature a list of forum results now, and Google has a “Forums” tab that lets you specifically search in forums, the same way you can narrow your search to images or videos.
Clearly, forums are a strong competitor in the search engine landscape. Quality content on Reddit is much more likely to land on the first page of a Google search than Facebook, and besides, Reddit is one step ahead of Facebook for overall traffic.
How to Do Forum Marketing
So how do you tap into this potential goldmine? It takes finesse, but it’s not hard. Forum marketing works similarly to any other type of social media marketing, except you need to put extra effort into being a human, not a business, and need to save the self-promotion for ads.
Find your audience
The first step to forum marketing is to find your audience. First, pick a forum, and if applicable, find the relevant subforums and topics within. If in doubt, Reddit is probably the best place to start. But you can also look for unique forums dedicated to your topic if you can find one with worthwhile traffic and activity. We’d recommend starting with only one or two forums since it’s a time commitment to do it right. Quality is better than quantity.
Once you find your audience, get to know them. Let’s say you choose a subreddit. Spend some time there. Learn what kind of people are in the community and what they’re talking about. Of course, don’t forget to check the actual rules, too–many forums don’t allow promotions or linking.
Focus on your industry expertise, don’t self-promote
When you’re ready to start posting, focus on being an expert in the topic or industry. No matter how tempting, don’t promote your business, service, or products. The primary reason forums are so popular is that people are looking for information without marketing. They’re looking for real humans to share real perspectives, not salesman pitches or AI content.
Your goal is simply to be a helpful member of the community and show your expertise. This is its own form of self-promotion–as people recognize and trust you, they’ll seek out your goods or services on their own.
Be consistent and authentic
Don’t self-promote, but also don’t try to hide who you are. If you’re in a forum for skiers and you sell skiing equipment, acknowledge that. Create a transparent, accurate profile that includes your company name and website link. Your profile name can be your business name, but it’s often better to instead represent the company as yourself.
Finally, effective forum marketing requires consistency. Popping in once a week won’t gain you much. Your goal is to build and maintain a recognized, trusted presence–and that doesn’t happen with one post or comment a week. Try to devote a little time every day or two to engage in the forum.
Boost Your Marketing with GreenHaven Interactive
At GreenHaven Interactive, we offer comprehensive digital marketing services to help your organization thrive in the online world. We take social media marketing off your plate, or we can help with other areas like on-page SEO or ads so you have more time to devote to forum marketing. If you want to learn more about successful marketing with forums, social media, SEO, and more, give us a call!
