I was just going through one of my forums and noticed something I hadn’t seen in a few years. A 3 year old forum post was brought back from the dead by a brand-new member of the site, whose comment had NOTHING to do with the discussion at hand. While his post was not any form of SPAM, it was what I’d call a junk post . . . just some garbage posted for what you’d think was no reason. While I normally would move or delete such a post, I was curious if there would be some kind of follow up, so I decided to let it go for a bit.

Fast forward two hours
Another post showed up on the same thread, this time by another new member. This post, answered the non sequitur of the first new poster, but in doing so, pointed him to this awesome website that demonstrated what he was talking about.

Spammers will Never Learn!
Promoting yourself through forums is a great way to get traffic to your website, but pulling this crap isn’t the way to go. Its just amateur hour! Of course, upon doing a quick IP lookup, Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber had the same one . . . SHOCKER! The posts were removed, along with my two new friends (who, I’m assuming you now understand was the same idiot person).

How to Use Forums to Market Your Website

Forum marketing is one of the most simple, effective and FREE ways to market, period. Here’s how you do it:

1. Join a forum that is related to the niche of your website, and after doing so, be sure to read their site rules. Every site has a different set of rules or guidelines to work within . . . break the rules like the idiot I mentioned before and you’ll likely be booted. That said, 75% of the forums out there (I pulled that number out of a hat, but from what I can tell, it works!) don’t do any kind of moderating, so the entire thing is going to be a haven for spammers – posting here is a waste of your time . . . move on!
2. Create a forum signature. Again, be sure your signature complies with the rules of that forum. Make sure to include your website in your signature. I’d also recommend using your real name. People are more likely to have some kind of interest in you and your links if you’re willing to put yourself on the line by telling people who you are.
3. Get active by posting RELEVANT content on the forum and by participating in different conversations. Don’t just post a bunch of fluff. Engage in conversation and get involved. As you spend time on the forum, people will get to know you (make sure you’ve got a personal avatar uploaded), and eventually, they’ll likely want to visit the link in your signature.
4. It is that simple! You don’t need to post nonsense posts that link back to your site or manipulate the forums by posting a one-two combination like the aforementioned bozo. Just get involved and you’ll soon see actual gains in traffic from your engagement.

Good luck!

SEEKING PHPBB MODDER FOR FORUMS

I’m looking for someone to help me out installing some mods on a phpBB forum. I need someone with a background working on phpbb forums, who has the ability to problem-solve and work around any coding issues that may exist.

Please contact me if you can do this or if you know someone who can . . . .

BTW – There is pay involved!

How A Simple Forum Conversation Got Ugly

Some people just make no sense to me. Yesterday, a situation came up on our real estate forums that I had not seen before. A member who was relatively new (less than 2 months) made a post where he was trying to find buyers for properties that he had. In his post, he said, “I have properties for sale in PA, IN, OK, TX, TN, AR, LA. Please contact me for more info,” which I found to be pretty vague; I asked that he post more information (after going through this with him before, mind you).

In responding, he replied with a somewhat rude “Do you have a way for me to post a spreadsheet? Because I have 100 properties scattered! Are you interested in buying? No?”. As a result, I had to let him know that I was in charge of the site (which everyone can clearly see from my signature) and that he would need to be more clear in his posts if he wanted to use our site to make deals.

From there, things went haywire! Another member inquired about another issue that his post presented and he just went off. He started to insult me personally and began to act completely rude, picking apart my posts and challenging me by demeaning me. He also was nasty to the guy who challenged him.

I just don’t get it . . . did he think that by insulting and berating me that I’d allow him to continue posting on my site? Did he think that he would attract people to work with him by acting that way? It simply makes absolutely no sense to me.

Once this was brought to my attention, I found it most interesting that he had gone ahead and posted information about the properties he had available after all the posts where he was nasty. I kept the entire thread as an example for our members (but removed his posts where he posted the property info as I felt that he was not deserving of getting any exposure for them after his previous actions – btw. he tried to insult me again in the titles of some of those posts) of what not to do on our site, and have left it unlocked to see what some of them had to say about it all. It has been fun to read their thoughts!

While I’ve had to ban people many times before for breaking our rules or spamming, I’ve never had a situation come up where someone starts to attack me personally for no reason. It was completely unprovoked, and absolutely uncalled for. As a result of all of this, he was banned from our site. Normally, I’ll ban someone and move on, but I was so shocked by this one that I had to share.

BTW – I actually emailed the guy to see what his deal was, but it seems that he has not had the courage to respond.

Forums can be wonderful tools for users, especially if they are properly run and administered. I wanted to share some tidbits that newer forum administrators should find useful.

Some Tips for New Forum Community Webmasters

• Establish a set of rules and guidelines from the outset that your users need to follow. If you have your rules down in writing, it makes it much easier to point to something when someone messes up.
• Don’t be lax about enforcing your forum rules. One or two bad members can ruin a forum. If people have clear expectations and realize that you or your moderators won’t take crap from people, then you won’t have larger problems down the line.
• Always have a section devoted to “New Member Introductions.” This is important because you want people who are either new to forums or to yours in particular to feel welcome. ALWAYS make sure that people are welcomed with open arms to your site. Never let a post in this section go without a response. It helps build forum karma.
• When building a forum from scratch, always send a welcome PM or email to new members. This will become increasingly difficult as your site grows, but it will often inspire your new members to post where they may otherwise have not.
• Stimulate conversation by starting interesting discussions in your area of focus. Ask questions or start a debate about timely news or other information. Especially on newer forum sites, users will often be shy about starting a topic. If you start it, there is a better chance that they will get involved in a discussion.
• Always thank your members. Without them, your site would not work. I make it a habit to thank at least a few members every day for their participation on our real estate forums. With close to 6,000 members now, the site would be in no way as succecssful as it is without them. I show my thanks with little emails and messages, and my users absolutely appreciate it!

I hope these little bits of advice come in handy for anyone starting a forum out. Feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to help you out with any questions on forums. BTW – There’s much more to come about forums, so stick around!

9 Steps To Successfully Market to a Forum Community
In a previous post The Direct and Indirect Approaches to Forum Marketing we talked about the two approaches to forum marketing. I’d like to share the 9 steps you will want to follow to forum marketing success; this is basically a primer on indirect forum marketing (the only approach I fully endorse).

1. Find a forum in the niche you want to market to
2. Check to be sure the site allows you to create a forum signature with a link to your business
3. Set up an account
4. Create a forum signature that includes the following information: your name, website/business name, web address, contact info (if any), description of the website/business (DO NOT USE A SALES PITCH – e.g. The Best Car Parts Shop Around – that stuff is useless). Be descriptive!
5. Find the forum introductions section (most good forums will have one) and tell people about yourself. Talk about your business, but don’t just drop a sales pitch. Let people know what your interests are in the topic beyond your business.
6. PARTICIPATE! Become an active member of the forums. Help others on the site. Get involved in the debate. POST, POST, POST! In time, the members will see you as an expert in the topic. With more posts, your site/business will have more exposure, and you will see results.
7. If the forum has an area for members to advertise in, use it. (if not, don’t post ads on the site; just use your forum signature and your knowledge to do the selling for you)
8. Volunteer to become a moderator on the site (forum administrators will often be willing to trade advertising for good moderators). In addition to the opportunity of getting more exposure, moderators are typically given more respect and looked at with even more authority then other members. With this comes more clicks and more business!
9. Find other forums in the same area of interest and repeat steps 1-8.

Not only have I used these techniques, but I see others use them every day on my site! It is a proven formula. Give it a try and I know you won’t be disappointed!

Forums (aka. message boards or discussion boards) are incredible resources. Not only are they helpful for learning and helping others, but they can also be valuable tools for marketing your business or website. There are two approaches you can take in using forums for marketing; the direct approach, or the indirect approach.

The Direct Approach

Some might call this the SPAM message of forum marketing . . . I certainly do. The direct approach is basically the hard sell. You go to forums that are in the niche you want to market to and pitch your stuff. Have a gardening business and want customers . . . go to a gardening forum and post a few messages telling people what you do and sell yourself. Everytime I see someone do this, they post multiple messages around the site that are all sales pitches; on a good forum, these posts are typically removed very quickly as is the member posting them.

Is this method effective?
It depends. If you happen to catch people who are looking for someone like you, then it probably is. On the other hand, people don’t like things shoved down their throats. The hard sell typically turns people off. Many forums have rules forbidding such behavior outside designated thread areas for that exact reason. The hard sell is ineffective mostly because there is no long-term way to sustain it. You can’t keep posting ads on a forum without being asked to stop.

Would I recommend the direct approach?
Absolutely Not! Many forum administrators consider these posts to be SPAM. Posting ads on forums can get you banned very quickly in most reputable discussion boards.

The InDirect Approach

The indirect approach is more of a soft sale technique. The premise of the indirect approach is by participating on a site and helping others, you will gain the members’ trust. Eventually, you will be seen by those people as an expert in your area and they will start flocking to you. I witness this every day on my real estate forums. Many of our members are extremly helpful to others on the site. They spend their time giving advice to anyone who needs it. Soon, buzz around the site starts flowing and that member begins to get extremly busy. We have members who have built their businesses through the goodwill they have generated on our forums.

Is this method effective?
The indirect approach is simple and effective. I have used it to build traffic for many websites that I run, and see people use it on our forums as well. Don’t believe it? Try it out yourself!

How do I implement the indirect approach?
To effectively use the indirect approach, just follow the 9 Steps To Growing Your Business Using Forum Marketing.

I found a great mod for phpBB forum administrators. This particular mod will ban any user who registers for your forum from a particular time zone. I’m not sure if many newbies to phpBB are aware, but most SPAM registrations come from GMT-12 Timezone. If you can prevent users from registering from that zone, you’ll go a long way to stop these SPAM-Bots.

Ban User Registration Based on TimeZone aka. SpamBot Timezone Registration Mod

Just alter the timezone range to prevent bots and people from zones you don’t want them coming from.

#
#—–[ OPEN ]——————————————
#
includes/usercp_register.php
#
#—–[ FIND ]——————————————
#
$sql = “SELECT MAX(user_id) AS total
#
#—–[ BEFORE, ADD ]——————————————
#
if (($user_timezone < -5) || ($user_timezone > 5))
{
$message = ‘Sorry, you appear to have triggered our spam security system. Please go back and modify some of the information and try again.

To give you a hint, we only accept registrations from people based in (or near) the GMT time zone area.

‘;
message_die(GENERAL_MESSAGE, $message);
}
#
#—–[ CLOSE/SAVE ALL FILES ]—————————————
#

Thanks to InertaM for sharing this with everyone.