Ten tips for bloggers taking part in forums February 5, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : 31daychallenge , trackbackThese ten top tips for bloggers who want to participate more in web forums might help to make life easier for all involved. Originally written in response to a question from Danielle, actually there are thirteen tips but who’s counting..
Choosing a forum to participate in
1) Search for forums that match your interests using criteria such as “your topic niche” +forum (phpBB or vB)
2) Browse threads with the most replies to see if they are lively, current and interesting. Look at one or two of the low response threads as well.
3) Notice if people are using signatures with links to their websites or blogs. If anybody is, that’s good because it’s what you want to do as well. Read the terms and conditions, but don’t be too put off if they sound a bit strict. Your intention is to become a valued contributor.
Registering with the forum
4) I think it’s best to use the same username identity for each forum you take part in. The password should be unique though. I’d suggest using a gmail.com email address so that you can properly filter any notifications and subscriptions coming from the forum. Receiving email “push” is key to continuing participation so tick any options to be automatically subscribed to threads you contribute to.
5) Edit your profile page to include your interests and website/blog. Don’t give an exact date of birth, that’s too much information except to show that you are over 13 years old or something like that. Edit your signature to include links to your blogs after your name and separator or “witty” quotation. If you can add your own RSS feed into your profile page (as with Ning groups) then do so.
6) Once registered and confirmed by email, make an initial, short introduction post. There may well be a designated thread for doing that. Now log out and make sure you can still read your own writing, with sig or link. The public view may look different to the logged in view. If the forum is going to insist that you contribute without being allowed to bring attention to your own blog in any way then move on to another before you get involved.
7) Bookmark or store the URL to your newly adopted forum with all the others so that you won’t miss it when you do the rounds from time to time.
Reading the forum.
The key to being able to keep up with multiple forums lies in being able to quickly find only those posts which are new and unread. If you have to scroll way down past all the old posts to find any new ones then this is wasting your time and effort. Some forums have a “Quick” menu, some have sort by date, some have “take me to my unread threads”. You want to spend your valuable time reading new conversations, not ploughing through old ones again.
9) If you see something which provokes or inspires a response from you, write your reply and post it immediately. There’s no need to read everything else first, this is an asynchronous discussion mode.
10) If somebody has replied to your post, and you should get notified if at all possible, then go back and respond immediately. Don’t go through the rest of your notifications first.
Writing to the forum
(Three more tips for bloggers taking part in forums, no less important than the previous ten)
11) Intersperse longer considered posts with short one liners. Start a new thread from time to time. Get to know which of the regular posters you can expect to have a good conversation with and engage with them more.
12) There’s a certain knack to getting your imagination into gear for communicating across distance and timezones. Responding to a person in a forum is then more naturally conversational than formal writing. Hear the silent voices in your head! Yes, including your own! Laugh out loud and splutter in appreciation or indignation when appropriate.
13) Have fun.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
Hi, the tips make sense in themselves, but I wonder why you’d say it’s for bloggers? I expected tips to insert appropriate blogposts in forum discussions and vice versa!
Hmm, that’s a very good point Joitske. In this post I’m coming from the point of view of people who are bloggers first, and then decide they need to join some web forums in order to reach a wider audience for their topic. It’s not about email lists, googlegroups, listservs or other internet discussion facilities.
A while back I was thinking more about online communities and how the relationship between the membership might change as some of them start blogging, which is coming at it from the other direction. Then you get the question of whether it’s OK to take a forum discussion and blog both sides of it or just your own contribution. Whether to insert a whole post or just a link. The power law come into it too. Is the forum community diluted or strengthened by the parallel existence of a bloggers network?
So my point now, as you’ve helped to show, is that these bridges can be crossed in both directions.
This information was exactly what I was looking for. One question I have is in the area of time managing all this. I keep all my ’social networks’ in my Speed Dial with Firefox. Doing this has helped somewhat. My question is….how do you manage to ’squeeze’ participating in forums into your ‘regular life programming’. Any helpful hints for that?
BTW…I really liked the tip about what to look for in threads and moving on…..I generally get overwhelmed right from the start. Now I am equipped with some information on how to approach the ‘forum threads’. Thanks.
Great post Andy.
I struggle with the culture on some of the bigger forums. Yes, it might be better exposure for my blog, but I get tired of some of the debate focused on analyzing/attacking every single word. It feels risky to say anything to me.
I love the smaller groups where I get to have a sense of who the individuals are, where relationships form between the members. Maybe not so great from a numbers perspective, but certainly more satisfying to me personally.
your tips already much useful. They are worth trying. Already I not some of the tips that you have mentioned, but I never tried them
Thanks for the good tips
Do you think this advice can be used generally, not just by bloggers?
Yes, most of the tips can be applied by non-bloggers I suppose. The motivation might be slightly different. Only points 3,5 and 6 contain references to blogs but it was all written with somebody in mind who has starting to interact online through blogging, and then ventures out to the forums in search of a wider audience. If the purpose is simply to find like minded people to talk to without needing to promote a blog or anything then there are other options as well such as mailing lists.
some great tips here. thanks for posting this. i gave you some link love here:
http://sean808080.com/blog/how-to-participate-effectively-in-web-forums/
Awesome tips - I think if you get overwhelmed then a very good forum is now not that interesting.
I got here by sean808080’s link love!
Good ideas. I think it’s important to maintain some ethics when building your business. I’ve seen too many people stick their foot in the waters of the dark side (spam) only to be sucked in completely. Even something as simple as a forum posting (or blog comment) should be guided by your principles.