Advertising on Message Boards

Message boards (as well as newsgroups and other communities) are an excellent place to advertise, as long as it's subtle and appropriate. You must be extremely careful, however, to keep it so light that your posts are not perceived as advertising. 

You see, if you post blatant advertisements on a message board, you will soon find yourself ostracized from the board. Some boards will allow you to get away with this for a brief time, others will slam you to the mat the first time you do it.

Besides, blatant advertising on message boards is not effective. Even those boards which allow advertising do not produce results. Why not? Only people who post advertisements post to those kinds of boards. Very few people lurk there (who likes to read ads, after all?)

Some suggestions to help you use this media are below.

Create and use a signature box - Read the board rules. If they allow a signature box to include a link, then include one (and only one) link to your web site.

Fill in the profile - Most good board include some kind of profile which is used to give information about the poster (presumably you). Make sure you fill this in. Make sure it is factual and not  sales pitch. You want people to be interested and click on the link to your site. Remember the profile is to promote you and your site, not a product or service.

Do not put links to your web site (or autoresponder to anything else of yours) in your message. Put it in your profile and/or signature line (if allowed by the message board).

Read the archive of posts - Most message board keep an archive of older posts. Read these before you answer or make an original post yourself in order to get a feel for the board. You may also find lots of great ideas for your own articles and publications.

Lurk for a while - Just read the new posts for a while to get to know what the board is like, who is posting and the experience level of the people involved. Give it a few days (or weeks) before contributing yourself and you will be able to make higher quality contributions to the board.

Answer posts - Read the board and answer as many posts as you can. Only answer those where you can provide honest and useful help.

Ask questions occasionally - You may also want to ask an on-topic question once in a while. Target these questions well to try and get as many responses as you can, and keep the conversation going by asking for clarifications and so on. Just make sure these questions are honest and real - you should be able to find something you can start a conversation about.

Never promote your site in your answers - Your site is promoted in your profile and signature line, not in your answers. The purpose of your answers is to show people that you are an expert or have useful data (to build up your reputation).

Stay on topic - Make sure your answers (and original posts) are on-topic at all times.

Check your spelling and grammar - Remember you are trying to portray yourself as someone who knows and can be trusted. Misspellings and grammatical errors can destroy that purpose fast.

Follow the rules of the board - For example, if the board allows signature lines, then include them by all means. If not, then don't include them. But make sure you read the rules and follow them to the letter.

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