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Forums are one of the most popular kinds of sites on the Internet today. The reason is simple. It is a place where people have the freedom to express their opinions and communicate with other people around the world about almost any topic imaginable. And, people do in fact use forums to do that very thing.

Forums are places on the Internet where people with like interests or common problems gather. You can find forums for almost any subject by using your favorite search engine, typing in key words followed by the word ‘forums’ and get lots of hits. There are forums dedicated to topics like travel, scuba diving, fly fishing, needle crafts and car races. There are forums dedicated to topics like cancer, diabetes, Crohn’s disease, and other diseases. There are forums dedicated to hair loss, weight control and depression. You name it…you can most likely find a forum where those who are interested in or concerned with the topic gather.

That nearly sounds like a captive audience, doesn’t it? By finding and posting to forums that are related to your niche or sub niche market, you have a pool of potential paying customers to talk to about your product or service that can help them with their problems, concerns or interests.

You must not, however, go into a forum doing nothing but advertising yourself, your website or your products. You must first join the forum and get to know the other posters. You must establish yourself as a welcomed member of the group. After you be come accepted, what you have to say will be accepted as an offer of help and not seen as an advertisement. You can share your expertise on the subject and be seen as a friend helping a friend rather than as a business trying to sell something.

People do love to chat! ICQ was the first chat program but it certainly wasn’t the last and since that time chat programs have become much more sophisticated and much easier to use.

One of the things that are so amazing about Internet chat is that people will tell perfect strangers their deepest secrets and reveal their most pressing concerns to them…. things that they wouldn’t dream of discussing with their significant other or their closest friends. It’s the fact that they can remain anonymous, I think, that causes this unrestrained frankness on Internet chat.

You can make use of this phenomenon to help establish and build your credibility. You should, of course, use your own identity and join chat sessions, provide good and accurate information and thereby, help to establish yourself as a guru and gain the desired credibility. I have known of some marketers who joined chat sessions under assumed identities and recommended themselves and their products and services to others. That seems a bit underhanded but it could be effective.

You can set up chat pre-arranged chat sessions with your established customers to answer questions and give detailed instructions for the use of your products or services. People like direct contact. What they like even more is being able to give their direct input to the makers of products and services that they use.

During chat sessions with customers when you receive a compliment on your product or service, be sure to ask, “May I quote you”? Then follow through and publish the quote in the report of the chat session on your website. You will have made a good will ambassador for yourself and increased your credibility… all free of charge. It doesn’t get any better than that.

When you see a new product advertised, whether it be for a new shampoo or a new vehicle, the opinions you will value the most when you are deciding whether to give that new product a try or not will be what your friends, family, acquaintances or even perfect strangers who have tried the product have to say about it. You will put a lot more weight on the opinions of others about the value of the product than you would ever dream of putting on what the producer of the product promises in his paid advertising campaigns.

When you see an advertisement on TV that features a well-known personality extolling the virtues of a new product, you think to yourself, “Yeah, riiiiiight! And just how much did you get paid for saying that?” On the other hand, when your best friend says that he or she tried the product and it delivers everything that is promised, you are going to go buy the product. That is the ‘word-of-mouth’ effect.

In the world of Internet marketing, the best and easiest way to achieve the word-of-mouth effect is to simply ask your customers what they think. In order to get responses you may need to offer a free gift in exchange for replies but it will be worth the effort. When you get positive personal use responses about your product, you post them on your website for all the world to see. Enthusiastic personal use testimonials are the best way to achieve the word-of-mouth effect in Internet marketing and if you have to give away a bonus or free gift to get them, so be it.

Enthusiastic personal use testimonials will give you instant credibility on the Internet marketing scene and that, my friend, is priceless.