Forums Or Blogs: Where Should You Spend Your Time As A Marketer?

The Internet offers the small business owner tools that were unimagineable to last generation's business owners. Where they had to send out mailings to thousands of people (and pay for postage), you can email a newsletter, individualized to each member of your client list. Where they had to resort to expensive marketing firms to conduct costly and time-consuming surveys, you can post a poll on your website, or ask your client list to send you questions. And where they had to host public seminars, put out food and drinks, advertise, and pray that someone shows up to learn about the focus of their business, you can put a 10 part eCourse in your autoresponder.

Maybe the most flexible and interactive tools available to you as internet marketer, are the forums and the blog. Forums are what used ot be called "user groups" or - in the old old days - clubs. A group is created around a topic, like "List Building" or "Obscure Midwest Punk Bands Of The 1980's", and interested members join by submitting their email addresses. Then, whenever a posting is made, that posting is distributed to all the members (at least those who opt to receive postings). Other members can respond to it, or make a posting of their own. Many forums are moderated - watched over by a member or team of members, to ensure that the postings stay on-topic or do not violate rules established by the forum. The advantage of forums for the internet business owner is the ability to educate other members, or establish oneself as an expert in the field, or to establish a forum based around your specific product or service.

A blog is a very new invention of the internet, and, like most things on the internet, has spread like wildfire. A blog is very much like a bulletin board website: the blog owner makes postings, of regular frequency or randomly, on a specific topic or random topics, and readers can comment them. The blog is somewhat less interactive than a forum, in that topics and postings (called "threads") in a forum are generally not singled out in a blog. Blogs, however, tend to be more personal, more by convention than by any inherent mechanism. A blog is more focused on the writer and can be very narrowly tailored to one or a few topics, or they can be virtual stream-of-consciousness diaries.

Forums, being focused on a particular topic, are easier to attract members to. However, the singularity of topic may also eliminate huge sections of your target audience, if you don't choose your topic correctly. Also, you have no idea if your postings in a forum are read by anyone.

Blogs can be as creative and far-reaching as your choose to make them. The problem is getting the blog in front of your target audience, and simply having your blog noticed among the thousands of blogs that have popped up.

So which one should you spend your time on? If you are a beginning marketer, the answer is FORUMS. You should create at least one forum focused on the product or service you are offering (vitamins, dog grooming, father's rights - whatever it is). You should participate in forums that are related to your business (but don't just start posting advertisements - that's the QUICKEST way to turn your audience against you). You should research your responses, and establish that you know what you are talking about. And you should ONLY - but ALWAYS - reference your website in your signature block, with a link and a brief descriptive sentence.

Once you gain some experience, and maybe a bit of a reputation, a blog will return more on your investment of time. Until people know who you are - and more importantly, what you have to say - your blog will just sit there - brilliantly unread. However, once you have a certain customer list or a name that people want to learn from, your blog will be read by people who are looking for it.

Of course, you should continue with newsletters, ecourses, articles, joint venturing with related companies - all the things that build a business. But forums and blogs build your reputation. And your reputation is what sells your business.

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What are vitamins?

an organic substance that acts as a coenzyme and/or regulator of metabolic processes. There are 13 known vitamins, most of which are present in foods or supplements; some are produced within the body. Vitamins are crucial for many bodily functions including a healthy immune response.
An essential low molecular weight organic compound required in trace amounts for normal growth and metabolic processes. They usually serve as components of coenzyme systems. For humans, vitamin A, the B series, C, D1 and D2, E and K are required. Deficiencies of one or more vitamins in the nutrient supply result in deficiency diseases.