Articles for Webmasters

Lurker or Poster?

Why lurking on forums can kill your internet marketing career - before you've even started.

Forums are a great way of gaining knowlege, and keeping up to date with trends and techniques. But do you lurk, or jump right in and post?

I'm going to let you know why you should make a post on your first visit to a forum, and how doing so will propel you straight into the top 20% of internet marketers.

But first, lets get familiar with the "pareto principle" or the 80/20 rule. This states that 20% of your activity will produce 80% of your profits, or 20% of guys will get 80% of the available dates, or 20% of all the people in the world own 80% of all the money, or 80% of posts on a forum, will be made by 20% of the members. The rule holds good across all types of activity.

so what does this have to do with you? Why is it essential that you know this rule, and what does it have to do with posting to forums?

Here's why, and incidentally, it's why most of the regular posters on forums are making money.

If you genuinely participate on forums, and include your byline, you'll begin to drive significant traffic to your website or affiliate link. (note - a byline is a short description and URL at the bottom of your post, just like you'll find at the bottom of this article)

On one new forum, that I post to, every post results in around 15 visitors to my website, and 1 sale. And there are only 133 registered users.

What percentage of people who visit a forum, NEVER make a post? Yep, 80% of visitors never post, never get any traffic and never make a sale.

So - if posting to forums almost guarantees sales, why do 80% of potential internet millionaires lurk instead of posting?

Here's why, and if that lurker is you, you already know this.

1) They don't want to appear to be dumb or foolish

2) They don't have the experience that other posters do

3) They are scared that their post will draw negative comments

4) Their post might be misinterpreted

5) They might "blow it" on the first post

I'm here to tell you that any of those things might happen, but it's unlikely, and even if they do happen, YOU'VE BEEN SUCCESSFUL.

One forum I'm a member of has over 30,000 members, and a good few respected internet marketers are among them. Some of these guys are millionaires and have forgotten more about marketing, than most people will ever learn.

In comes a poster who was Indian, I think, and in his FIRST POST, offers to help these "gurus" sort out their websites, because he's noticed a few things that they could improve on. OK, the first few replies were like, who the hell are you, but the poster persisted, and he had a great sense of humour. That thread was read 1452 times. I guarantee, that with a decent byline and offer, this guy would have made 15 sales off his first post.

The worst thing that can happen, is that your post gets ignored. If you get replies that you don't like, REPLY TO THEM. Hey, you just made your second post.More people are going to click on your byline, and you're in danger of making some money all of a sudden.

If you don't know what to post:

Ask a question, like how do I configure my e-mail?, or how do I get more traffic?, or anything that you need an answer to.

Reply to someone who's asked a question.

Ask for opinions on your website or idea.

Or just ask, where do I get started with this internet marketing thing?

Warning: Be polite, even if some replies to your post are not. Do not SPAM - blatant marketing will quickly be exposed by forum members.

So take the plunge. Go visit a forum today, make a post, include your byline, and then tomorrow, do it again. In fact, do it every day and watch as you leap into the top 20% of internet marketers.