Community forums can serve many purposes for the successful internet marketer. There are thousands online on just about every topic you can imagine. Some are very busy and can have lots of members as well as a high Google page rank.

Here are a few of the ways you can use forums to your advantage:

• Your forum signature appears on every post so the more posts you write, the more links to your website(s)
• Many forums have classified sections so you can utilise this to advertise your products / services
• Talk to the webmaster / admin about link trading or displaying your banner. Forum ad fees are often very reasonable
• Chat with like minded people and get some visits to your website
• Get information about your niche
• Some forums offer revenue sharing
• Some forums allow you to feed your blog(s) into your control panel

Forums: A Social Marketing Goldmine!

Not only can you meet people, sell your wares and learn about your niche but forums offer a great opportunity for off-page SEO for your own websites.  Don’t abuse them or else you might get banned but follow the rules and be a valuable member of each community you join and you can definitely reap some rewards.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

Do you want to have more subscribers on Twitter?  Do you want to maximise your marketing impact in the Twitterverse? Your Twitter people, a.k.a your “Tweeps” are interested in following like minded people and / or very interesting people.  If you try to sign up with the sole purpose of link baiting, you’re not going to get very far with this tool.  In order to maximise the impact of Twitter for internet marketing you have to treat it like a social marketing tool that requires both give and take.

Here are some Twitter tips:

-Don’t push out a link in every Tweet. More than 75% of your Tweets should be interesting rather than product related.

-Do reply to your followers who ask you a question or comment on one of your statuses via the replies button. If you don’t check this and ignore those trying to converse with you, you’ll get ‘un-followed’.

-Tweet unto others as you’d have Tweeted unto you.  That means that if you want people re-tweeting you, do that for them. Social bookmark for them, tell your followers that @user is a great person to follow, etc.   Social media is very much a tool built on quid pro quo.

Happy Tweeting!

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

When you use social media tools to try to increase your chances of making more sales, you can take informration in these tools and use them to your advantage. A lot of hype is spread around about monetizing Facebook, MySpace and Twitter but new marketers often don’t know how to mine these systems for information that can help them.  Here are some tips:

Search for keywords

Twitter Search is a tool that can help you in internet marketing if you’re using it to its full potential.  A good way to use it is to search for people you can market to. If you sell widgets, you can search for others that have tweeted about widgets or that use widgets in their profile and add them to your friend list. From there, you can establish yourself as a guru in that niche and you could develop more subscribers, clients and people who’ll buzz about you on the social marketing scene.

Search for groups

Some of these tools such as MySpace and FaceBook have common interest groups. By joining those groups, you increase your ability to find people interested in your subject matter..

Make the most of your profile

Use the profile on these sites to maximize your potential for followers and for success. You need to look like a valuable member of the community and not just another person trying to sell something.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

Marketing with free online tools is a great idea.  How can you make the most of free tools like Squidoo?  Here are some tips to help you!

A Picture: Worth 1000 Words

Put pictures on your lenses.  Not just at the top either, put a picture into each module. If you don’t have any pictures in mind, search sxc.hu for royalty free pictures.  Don’t forget to give your pictures a file name that utilises SEO. It can help!

Modules

Instead of using one block of text to write an article promoting an affiliate program, write lots of modules instead.  This way, you can have a bolded headline for each which will optimize for SEO and provide the scannability factor online users look for when browsing.

Interactivity

Add some polls, make some lists and use some of the other features in Squidoo that make your lens look different. How about ending your text with an open ended question? Then, have a guestbook and converse with your visitors on that guestbook.

Social Networking

Use your social networking skills to promote your lens.  Ping it, microblog about it, link to it in other sites of yours and write a few articles for article directories and link to your Squidoo lens in the bio box.  You can even put affiliate codes directly in a Squidoo list of links to send people directly to your hoplink.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

Yesterday we talked about online networking clubs. Today we’ll explore ways for you to get involved in these types of exchanges. You can benefit in many ways by networking with social marketing sites and by getting involved in exchanges, you help a fellow marketer and they help you by linking to your sites, commenting on your blogs and using social bookmarking and networking tools to spread the word about your online entrepreneurial efforts.

Join a Social Media Club

There are online clubs and sites devoted to social media where you might have to do an hour worth of activity a month to help others. For your participation, you’ll get to submit URLs of your online homes to the effort and have others participate and give you some link love.

Create Your Own Networking Group

If you don’t see a suitable club, consider starting your own. Check on Yahoo Groups or MSN Groups as well as on online forums to start a club and promote for membership in some of your favourite social media tools. If you want to get involved just for a particular item you want to promote consider posting in a webmaster forum such as Digital Point forums and offer a Stumble or Digg exchange where marketers will scratch one another’s proverbial backs.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008