Book: Message Boards and Forums (part 3)

Continuing on from the previous two weeks and wrapping up my topic, here is the final part of my section about Conversational Marketing in Message Boards and Internet Forums...

Membership
Message boards often have a member ranking system to identify seniority. Seniority is often identified by a system of names similar to military rank. This rank is defined by both time in the community and number of posts within the community. It is therefore in the interest of every member of a message board community to be in the community for the long haul and to contribute as often as possible. Give yourself at least 3 months to assimilate into the community and at least 100 posts.

Message board members will spot you if you are a marketer and using their community to advertise or broadcast a message. There are a series of names for those who do not enter these communities with these intentions:

• N00B – “Newbie” is a member with little contribution to the community.
• Troll – Someone that repeatedly and intentionally breaches etiquette (or “netiquette”), often posting derogatory or otherwise inflammatory messages about sensitive topics in an established online community to bait users into responding.
• Puppet – Term refers someone who is simultaneously registered under different pseudonyms on a particular message board or forum.
• Spammer – People who utilize a number of illicit techniques to post their spam, unpaid advertisements that are in breach of the forum's rules, including the use of bots.

Gatekeepers
Each message board community has its gatekeepers. These can be site moderators, site owners, site administrators, or a combination of each. Once you have established yourself as a welcome member of the community, you should then get to know the moderator. It behooves you to have their approval for transparent marketing so that they are aware of what you do and that you mean only to offer insight and not blatant advertising. If you are properly assimilated into the community, the moderator or other active members may seek your expertise to answer questions or settle disputes.

You can approach these gatekeepers through contact information on the site or create a basic profile within the board and approach them through a Private Message (PM). You should be honest about your identity and straightforward with your goals. In the long term, brands should provide gatekeepers with relevant, topical and, when possible, exclusive content and information that will clearly be of value to the members of the board. This will ensure a lasting relationship and the cooperation of these gatekeepers.

Summary
Social Media marketing as it pertains to message boards is a one to one process. It is marketing to people at an individual level and in order to do that, trust, honest, and transparency are the core values. The end result can be incredibly valuable and you can dramatically affect how people view a brand or a product. But you must devote time and build trust within a community to make marketing in message boards pay off and ultimately give you the positive exposure you are seeking.