Traffikd » General

How to Find Great Communities, Forums, and Blogs in Your Industry

Steven Snell — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 22:02:00 +0000

To market your company effectively, you need to find out where your target audience is. In this post I’ll show you how you can do this. I like using examples, so in this case, I’ll assume you sell Star Wars merchandise.

How to Find Niche Communities

1. Go to Ning and search for your keyword.

2. Use this Google query: [your kewyord] allintitle:join

3. Use this Google query: [your kewyord] allintitle:”Sign Up”

4. Do a search on Facebook and filter the results by clicking on “Groups”.

5. Search for LinkedIn groups by choosing “Groups” from the drop-down list and then entering your keyword in the search box.

6. Use these Google queries:
· [your keyword] social network

· [your keyword] online community

How to Find Forums

Use these Google queries:

[your keyword] discussion boards
[your keyword] message boards
[your keyword] “powered by phpBB”
[your keyword] “powered by vbulletin”

Then filter out forums with little or no activity. Do this by checking out when the last thread was started and how many views/replies each thread has.

How to Find Blogs

1. Google “[your keyword] blog”

2. Filter out all the blogs that don’t have any traffic. There are basically three ways you can do this:

· See how many comments each post has. Very few or no comments usually means not many people read the blog.

· Look for the TweetMeme button. Just a few re-tweets for each post usually means that the blog doesn’t have a lot of traffic.

· Check their estimated traffic on Compete.com.

About the Author:

Zeke Camusio is a serial entrepreneur, Internet marketing expert, published author, speaker and founder of an Internet Marketing Agency in Portland, OR.

Community News Section Has Been Added!

Steven Snell — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:21:42 +0000

Just a quick update to let everyone know that I have added a community news section to the right sidebar of the site. I’ll be adding links to posts that I come across on topics related to social media and blogging that I think are worth sharing.

You’ll notice below the list there is a link to submit news and a link for the news feed. First, the feed will be kept separate from the main RSS feed, so if you’re subscribed to the main feed already you don’t have to worry about getting unwanted news updates. Nothing will change unless you subscribe to the news feed.

If you have something that you would like to share in the community news, please feel free to use the submission form, that’s what it’s there for. You are welcome to submit your own posts as well as those of others, but not everything will get posted, they’ll all be moderated for relevance and quality.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know. (There may be some upcoming changes to the styling of the news list. It’s 2:15 AM and I can’t think straight at this point).

Sporting a New Design

Steven Snell — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:38:40 +0000

I just went live with a re-designed WordPress theme. Please move around the site and see what you think. It’s a very simple design that is intended to be highly readable and to focus on the content. If you’ve been to my primary blog, Vandelay Design, recently you may recognize the theme. Although there are a lot of changes, this design is built on the same core layout.

A few new pages have been added – Contact and Advertise. The sidebars have also been completely redone and now include links to popular posts and a feed subscriber count.

If you’re on the site and you notice something not working correctly, please leave a comment or use the contact form. Also feel free to leave your feedback on the new design.

Site News and Items of Interest

Steven Snell — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:02:18 +0000

Just a few quick things to mention:

1 – The comprehensive list of social media websites has been updated with some additions that have been suggested by readers. If you know of another site that should be listed, please contact me. With over 400 social media sites listed by category, this page has drawn a good bit of attention from bloggers and marketers and I would like to keep adding to it, so feel free to make a suggestion.

2 – The affiliate banner ads have been removed and banners are now available for purchase through BuySellAds for $20 per month. If you have questions about that you can contact me. I’ve never been interested in using a 3rd party service for managing ads, but I’ve had some friends say good things about BuySellAds, so we’ll give it a shot. If I like the service I’ll eat my words from the past and write up a review of the service.

3 – Text link ads (with no-follow tags) are available through ScratchBack for $5.

4 – I’m very interested in doing whatever I can to make this blog more useful for readers. If you have a particular aspect of social media marketing or some other aspect of marketing a website that you would like me to address in an upcoming post, please let me know by using the contact form or by leaving a comment on this post. I can’t guarantee that I’ll cover recommended topics, but if I feel that it fits withing my knowledge and experience I would love to give back to you in that way.

Have a great weekend.

RSS Awareness Day is May 1st

Steven Snell — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:52:27 +0000

Although most of us that use blogs and social media rely on RSS in our everyday lives, the vast majority of internet users still have no clue what RSS is, and even fewer take advantage of the power and convenience that it offers. Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips is trying to make a difference by declaring May 1st as RSS Awareness Day. Daniel’s goal is to get as many of us as possible to write about any aspect of RSS on May 1st to help get the word out and hopefully get attention from mainstream media, and he’s willing to bribe you for your participation. Well, I guess it’s not really a bribe, but if you mention RSS Awareness Day you’ll be in the drawing for a bunch of great, valuable prizes that are listed on his blog.

As online marketers, I believe that we have a lot to gain if a greater percentage of general internet users start to adopt RSS as a part of their daily internet usage. This would open up new opportunities and it would greatly expand our audience. I plan to publish something relevant to RSS on one of my blogs May 1st, and I hope you will consider doing the same.