Unlike blogs where a leading personality like Perez Hilton can single-handedly create one of the leading gossip sites on the net, Message Boards require significantly more input from the community to make the site worth visiting on a regular basis. Perez undoubtedly has some people supporting him, but sometimes as many as 100 staff members and over 50,000 active members contribute to a Message Board – also known as a forum. For those readers who don’t know what a Message Board is, spend a couple of minutes reading the Wikipedia article. Chances are you visited one before, but if not I encourage you to check out Big Boards which has a comprehensive list of more than 2,000 of the largest Message Boards.
Top 10 Most Active Message Boards According to Big-Boards.com
When Message Boards reach a certain level of unique monthly visitors and activity they become attractive to advertisers. This busy site now contains thousands of potential customers and the advertiser sees the site like shooting fish in a barrel – only if it were so easy! Advertisers need to earn their stripes by adding value to the community. Seems simple enough, right?
Let’s back up a minute. The reason Message Boards exist is because people with similiar interests gather online to engage in conversation about a variety of topics while exchanging opinions, user-generated photos, videos, popular online content – you name it. The most respected members of the site have earned this reputation by consistently adding value to the community through altruistic contributions and educating the community among other things.
Forum advertising typically includes a rotating banner and the ability to interact with community members to promote their wares – usually in a limited capacity. This ability to engage with community members is an enormous opportunity for advertisers and a notable distinction from advertising on blogs.
Example of Rotating Banner on Forum
For advertisers (also known as sponsors) to maximize their investment they should become active participants in the community – just like any other member. If the advertiser regularly contributes to the discussion by troubleshooting problems unrelated to their products or posting exciting videos, the community is more likely to reward that advertiser by shopping at their store. Would you rather buy a car from your best friend or a complete stranger? Chances are you’ll buy from your friend, and forums are no different.
Here are some helpful tips that should help advertisers navigate the sometimes treacherous terrain of Message Board advertising. Before advertising on a Message Board, you should be:
Interested in Participating: Don’t expect the banner to drive sales. Unless you’re offering free copies of the latest celebrity sex tape, chances are your banner will get overlooked by most visitors. Also, if every time you post you’re highlighting a new sale and linking back to your e-commerce store, members will start ignoring your threads. People didn’t come to the site to shop; they came to engage in conversation about one of their favorite topics. Become part of that conversation!
Ready for Business: If you regularly ship products late or mischarge credit cards – sponsoring a forum is probably not the best idea! Expect that any skeletons you have will eventually surface as community members LOVE to provide feedback about recent transactions involving advertisers.
Prepared for Equal Treatment: Just because you’re an advertiser doesn’t entitle you to violate the forum guidelines. Familiarize yourself with these guidelines before posting as members will report any irregularities in your activity. Nearly all forums have additional guidelines specific for advertisers, make sure you follow these as well!
Transparent in Business Practices: If a wave of negative feedback about your company surfaces within the forum – don’t ask the site’s administrators to delete the thread. This happens far too often and will not go unnoticed by the community. Whatever trust you have built up will be erased immediately. Instead you should contact the disgruntled customer(s) and work to resolve the problem. Respond to the threads (every one of them) explaining how you take these matters very seriously and are currently working to resolve the problem. Once resolved, politely ask the customer to follow up with another post letting the rest of the community know that everything has been taken care of.
An Expert: Get ready to answer some tough questions about what you’re selling. These members initially joined the site because they are passionate about the subject matter – and in some cases may know more than you do! Forum members are known to be particularly hard on advertisers who misrepresent their knowledge of a subject which also impacts your credibility as well. Do your homework.
Thankful for Business: Publicly thank members for their business. If you’re shipping 500 widgets per day to community members this is not feasible, but an occasional shout-out to the community for the recent orders will help establish you as a trusted vendor within the community.
Feel free to add comments with your own tips for advertisers.