Marketing on Social Networks or Forums

[Concash]

Can anyone tell which is more productive for an Internet Marketer. Marketing a product on the social networks, like Myspace, Twitter or Facebook. Or just sticking with Forums to get the word out about your product or service. Or doing a little of both???

[thejoeb]

Jump on Twitter. It's where things are happening now. But you don't want to just go in pushing your products. Give into the community. It's like a guy that comes to a cookout and the first thing he does is start trying to sell you stuff. You want to kick him out. But if he comes in and builds relationship with you when he begins talking about his "stuff" you will listen.

Check out my friend on the web at Alejardro Reyes-Successfool. He is the go to guy with Social Media.

[ezyprofits]

I think there's nothing wrong by doing both. Forums still works and so does social networks.

[Ron Killian]

Your kinda asking about a different social platform, least in my opinion. The ones you mention, differ from sites such as digg, redit, ect.

I have not had big success with the ones you mention, but it "seems" to get something out of those, you need tons of friends or followers, what seems to help in being successful with those. Though Facebook and Twitter are MUCH more marketer friendly compared to MySpace. And with Twitter you need to spend the time to build a relationship, other wise no one will listen to you, from my experience.

If your a band, MySpace is a good place, if your a marketer, you'll have a tougher road.

As for the other social networks like digg, ect, 99% of marketers will not see any traffic. To get traffic from social networks like those you need to create stories or news that is Buzzworthy, or viral in nature. Most people can't do that, not like there are certain steps you can take that guarantee a successful story. Also, few promotional/marketing news/story pieces will go big, because they are promotional. Put your sensational story on a page with tons of ads and even if it was good, it still probably wouldn't go far. The movers and shakers on social networks can smell promotion a mile away. I think timing is a big factor as well.

Course I do use social networks for building back links, so they do have their uses.

Just my two cents.

[tippie]

Why not post on forums and social bookmark the link to your post on sites like delicious,posterous,etc...
That's a win win situation

[waxman1000]

Your potential should only be limited by time. If you have the time, please go in and use all they marketing techniques you have at your disposal.

Facebook is really good, but you have to take time to join or create your own groups and promote them. Make new friends and so on. As i said above, it all depends on the time you want to put in and how hard you are ready to work. Since traffic is the backbone of every successful internet business, getting it is never an easy task.

[pmutrie]

Facebook and Twitter are two good marketing locations.... You can do an application install in your facebook account that allows you to auto update your Facebook when you update on Twitter.... Very useful....

[lancehibner]

Social Networking is now a mainstream and established communication platform and social networking are attractive because consumers are connecting with other consumers and the trust leans to be higher. It is clear that successful social networking site campaigns do not follow traditional marketing rules,

[diamondseeker]

Hi Concash

I think you should do both plus other things like article marketing for long term promotion. The whole trick is as Alex Jeffreys would say "dont pimp your stuff" In other words add valuable content to twitter and facebook and include a link to your site in your profile.

People are getting tired of all the promotion links on the social sites. Personally I refuse to click on any of them. I will however visit profiles and click on links within a profile to see what the person is up to.

[jiminic2]

I've been using Twitter for a short time, and it seems that all those who follow me have major stuff to promote. It's like a spammer's dream. Almost every post has something to sell. Trying to build a relationship seems anti productive, as hardly anyone reads the messages. Just get messages out. That's what I've been exposed to. I may get a new Twitter account and start over being very selective.