Message Boards - Good or Bad?

Lauren · Posted: July 12, 2007, 7:34 am Post subject: Message Boards - Good or Bad?

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Direct Sales Helpers News
Tips you can use!
July 11th, 2007
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Editor's Notes
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Per last week's article titled "Let Them Play"....

We apologize to those who thought this article had the intent of bashing Discovery Toys. As regular customers of DT ... that's the last thing we meant to do. DT is a quality company with quality merchandise. The intent of our article wes to compare the "good rep vs. the bad rep" from a customer's point of view. The experience shared in this article was a bad experience one of us had as a customer that just happened to involve a DT rep.

We do stand behind what the general intent of the article was all about. If you're going to attend events such as craft fairs, expos, home parties etc. you're going to have to expect customers to touch, taste, smell and test your products. It's the best way to sell your merchandise. We just apologize to those who misunderstood our intent.

To your success!

~Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank~
http://www.DirectSalesHelpers.com
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Message Boards - Good or Bad?
by Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank

One of the tips you may have seen for building a business is to start your own message board. This may seem good in theory, but do you know what work is involved?

It seems like a fantastic idea. Start a message board, link it to your site (yes, even direct sales reps should have a website!), and watch people flock to your site. Free advertising all over the place, right?

Wrong.

While it's true message boards are a great idea, they are also a lot of work. For those of you in multiple businesses with different niche sites, it's a very bad idea. Unless of course you don't mind paying others to start and manage your boards.

If you are running one business with one niche, it can be a very good way to promote your business. Before you jump into scripts and plans, use this checklist first.

1. Knowledge of Scripts Needed
If you have a hard time building your site with HTML codes, you aren't ready to install a message board. Several hosts now have one click installs, but knowledge of databases is still a must. At some point you are going to need to customize your board (such as adding the logo, different links, etc).

2. SE Friendly Mods
To make the most out of your boards, it needs to be search engine friendly. phpBB2 has a great script you can add to your message boards to give it dynamic links (meaning the message board links end in .html instead of .php - very important in search engine optimization).

3. Spam Bot Protection
In addition to SE friendly links, you are going to also need a mod that handles automatic sign ups or spam in some way. Nothing chases off members or kills your SEO like spam bots and auto sign ups. There are several mods you can test out with phpBB2.

4. Promotion
Your message board won't be anything without people. You'll need to promote your message boards heavily the first several months. Just a link from your website isn't enough. Also realize your board needs to be on a topic of interest. Not just focused on selling your product, or noone is going to get involved.

5. Time Required
If you don't have the time to post to your message board on a daily basis, it's going to fail. No new members are going to join if they see no recent discussion. On the same turn, current memebers will lose interest if there's no chatting going on.

Thinking you can handle a message board? If so, it's time to brainstorm some topics. As mentioned before, you don't want it to be a general discussion about your products. It needs to be something related.

For example, if you sell cooking products or foods, a recipe message board would fit perfectly. Note the discussion would be about food, not about your products in general. This way you gain people who you know are possibly interested in your product and see it on a regular basis.

If you sell candles, a message about home improvements or decorating ideas would fit. If you sell soy candles and bath products, you may think about starting a healthy living message board. This would work for others in the health industry as well.

One last note on chosing a topic and running a message board - do not spam your members on a regular basis! Use banners at the top of the board, or your signature line. If every post you make is some type of ad, your members aren't going to stay for long.

For an example of an active message board and to brainstorm ideas, be sure to see:
http://www.MommysHelperCommunity.com

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Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank