Get involved in the online conversation through forums

Online Forums – Get Involved – Get Active

One of the greatest sourced of information are online forums. There are many on the net. Almost every guru on the net has his or her own forum. There are some big forums geared at web development, seo, and just about anything else to deal with running a business on the net.

I am active in quite a few of these forums. 
Alice Seba’s Internet Based Mom’s forum is one of the main ones that I check in regularly, as I am a moderator on that forum. I also regularly check in on the Warrior forum, TurboCommunity, Internet Buzz, Adsense and Rich Jerk among others. Many others I pop in at occasionally to check what the latest info is and make a few replies, maybe start my own threads if there is something that I am working on and need some info.

This does a couple things. First of all it keeps me abreast of the latest in the industry. It keeps me in touch with new concerns and happenings. It also gets my name out in the Industry and provides back links to my various sites (I change up the signature on various forums, but ALWAYS have a signature in my posts).

But what it also does is make me part of a community. It gets me involved. It is in a way volunteerism. I take the time to answer posts when I have what I think is valuable info. I help out people by giving critiques of their sites. I do this because others have done the same for me at one time or another, and I will need it again.

Without people taking an active part in online forums they will die. If you look at any thread you see 2 things, views and replies. Yes if you start a thread you want people to view it, but the most important thing is replies. Without replies, your thread will soon fall off the first page and move into oblivion (we all know 95% of forum viewers only view the first page). Replies are the life blood of forums.

So my call to action is get involved, get active in those online forums. Do it for your own good, to get the advantages I listed above. But do it also to keep the forums alive and vibrant. I want your opinion, I want your experience, I want your point of view – I value it, and cherish it!

A Big THANKS for your next forum post.