Many people advise that you go to forums in order to promote your business. All well and good unless Unless thats all you do there. Ive watched what seems to be a mistake made by lots of folks who dont see some of the real potential in these forums. Some people seem to post anything, no matter how trivial, just to leave their link for people to follow. Maybe this can have some limited success if youre really good at leaving links that generate clicks.

But no matter how good you may be at that, a good forum can be so much more if youll open your mind and eyes. Here are 5 ways that I have used with great benefit. I believe you can benefit, as well.

1 - Use them for ideas.

Forums can be incredible idea holes. There are some people who seemingly have a vital need to radiate good ideas like the sun radiates heat. Youll find one or two people (sometimes a lot more) like this in every good forum. And youre missing a lot if you dont take advantage of it.

2 - In addition to getting ideas, you can use forums as antennas to learn about about resources, products, and services.

You can then do write ups about them to create ORIGINAL CONTENT on your site. This will increase the stickiness of your site and build your credibility as a marketer. Give this one a try for sure!

3 - Use them to learn how people communicate in writing.

This is very important because in internet marketing nearly EVERYTHING you communicate is via writing. Look for cool ways of saying things. Find out if new jargon is getting used. But most of all, find the people who seem to be most persuasive and study how they use their words and phrasing. Learn from them.

4 - Use forums to get great deals on things you dont know you want!

I have secured free lifetime memberships in various places where the owner asked for feedback before he or she launched. In return for this valuable feedback, I got my lifetime membership. These things dont necessarily come along every day or even every week. But if you explore the forums on a consistent basis, youll definitely get in on some really great deals. And if these things take off, they become incredibly valuable.

5 - Use them to see whos out there that you might be able to hook up with.

Not just for joint ventures, but for master mind groups (the kind that Napoleon Hill talked about). If they give you a URL to their website, this is essentially an invitation to strike up a conversation. Go ahead. Theyll tell you whether theyre interested or not. Ive developed some very good friendships and business relationships by doing just this very thing.

As you can see, forums can and should be used for much more than just driving traffic back to your site. Useful as that is, youre simply missing very important benefits if thats all you do.