I think most people know how I feel about Blogs and they can be likened to ‘Marmite’, you either love them or hate them, as came out in the recent presentation on them.

The second part of the presentation on using Forums to promote our businesses perhaps fell on more receptive ears, so what about them?

The general consensus is that most people end up on forums because they have a problem, if the members of the forum come across as both knowledgeable and helpful, we tend to follow them more often whilst we have need for their expertise. But it is worth just being associated with those that touch on our own areas of business.

Because we lend to property investors I actively follow two forums, Property Tribes and Landlord Zone, aiming to answer as many finance based questions as arise, not to promote my business as many don’t allow that, but if they do, a judicious forum ‘signature’ with a link to my website can do no harm. As far as both of those forums are concerned they also cover other ‘questions’ outside of my level of expertise and on at least 4 occasions I have been able to promote other SVBG members as a specialist who could help the poster.

It is all about building a reputation as someone who has the answers, or maybe just knows someone who does, and last year just being around these two earned us over £2k in fees, so worth a bit of forum lurking!

Why not try for yourself, as long as you go in with a giving rather than a receiving mindset and associate with those that could benefit your business further down the road, after all Facebook is just a forum, and look how many people use that!