Comments on: Forums: The Forgotten Social Media

By: Increase Website Traffic

Increase Website Traffic — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:03:07 +0000

Very nice information. Thanks for this.

By: Forums: The Forgotten Social Media | Van SEO Design | ThoughtLaboratory.com

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:43:40 +0000

[...] Read more from the original source: Forums: The Forgotten Social Media | Van SEO Design [...]

By: plat-n.com | all about information

plat-n.com | all about information — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:40:30 +0000

[...] And if this post isn’t proof enough for you, check out Steven’s post relating to the quality of forum traffic, which often have even tighter knit communities than Sphinn. Steven reports that the average user [...]

By: Dave Rainmakerweb

Dave Rainmakerweb — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:36:45 +0000

We have been using forums on behalf of our clients for 5 years now. We do brand marketing, product marketing and market research via forums, and great great ROI. Over the years we have developed tools and processes that allow us to generate buzz and gain strategic information for our clients. On of the most important aspects of this, is that the content we generate on the forums directly effects the SEM and SEO efforts of our clients in addition the marketing benefit.

By: 10 Marketing Lessons I Learned From 10,000+ Message Forum Posts | The Future Buzz

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:58:16 +0000

[...] Forums: The Forgotten Social Media (Van SEO Design) [...]

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:40:05 +0000

Thanks Greg. I think for the less savvy among us forums are a much easier concept to grasp as well. We might get social media 2.0 because we live in that world, but I’m not sure my grandmother would fully adopt the idea of voting up posts or networking through an app she downloads.

Nice article. I agree with your points, though I think most people will be best handling the forum posting themselves or in-house if a larger company. I’m not sure how much I’d trust hiring someone to do forum posting.

By: Greg @ About.com Online Business

Greg @ About.com Online Business — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:01:15 +0000

Excellent article Steven! I completely agree that forums (“Web 1.0 social media”) has been largely forgotten by the online media. But they’re still the biggest online communities for many niches, and a powerful marketing channel for anyone who does business online.

I recently wrote a getting started guide to forum marketing that’s makes for a great followup to this article. Once people are convinced they need to hit up forums, they can follow my 12 keys to successful forum marketing.

http://onlinebusiness.about.com/od/gettingtrafficmarketing/tp/forum-marketing.htm

Cheers!
Greg

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:37:16 +0000

Thanks Alexander. I can’t see forums going away even if they aren’t as exciting as social media. I’ve had moments with forums where I was ready to walk away from them, but then a few new people join and I’m back to enjoying them.

They do connect you with people in a way social networking sites don’t and I have built some really good friendships through forums over the years.

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:35:23 +0000

Thanks Gab. A couple of months ago I was looking at Analytics and noticed the huge difference in bounce rates. It made me think how the traffic that stuck around came from places where I really spend a lot of my time and presold the traffic.

That’s a good question about ecommerce and mid-sized forums. I’ve always just typed whatever keyword and then added forum. I don’t know that I’ve ever come across medium sized business forums.

One place to look for ecommerce forums is the support forums for the software. One of my clients uses osCommerce and I’m in their support forums, reading mostly. I can see where if you work on an application or just use it on a site you could become part of that community and pull some decent traffic your way.

I’ll try to think of some ideas for finding those forums. I suppose it’s possible there aren’t many, which might mean it wouldn’t be a bad thing to start.

By: alexander-social media maven

alexander-social media maven — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:48:23 +0000

A very relevant post in this new age of social media sites popping up and getting lots of buzz.

Forums are a time tested and proven method for getting much high quality traffic and even big marketers still talk about them and use them because they work.