5 Different Types of Forum Members and How to Spot Them

5 Types of Forum Members and How to Spot Them

So who are you?

The shit stirrer

:)

The Salesman

The first and perhaps the most ubiquitous of the forum members is the dedicated seller. He or she does not understand the golden rule that some people want to use the forums to get some information in order to feel a little more confident about whatever the forum is about. The seller will initially try to ‘befriend’ you, make you relaxed about them and then they try to sell you their product over and over again. They are a pain and simply don’t stop trying to sell even when it seems just blatantly inappropriate.

The Nervous One

Members are the ones who don’t quite seem to know what they are doing and they have come to the forum for help and advice. Usually they are keen to learn from other people and since they are so new and inexperienced it can be worthwhile getting to know them and then you can often link back to each other’s sites, thereby increasing your search engine ratings. The new kids on the block are usually very easy to spot, since they are the ones that usually post messages with the title ‘HELP!!!’.

Fakes

Forum members who are just companies who will ‘help’ try to solve a problem, but they are actually just selling you something. These members are often more difficult to spot, but be wary of anyone who gushes a little too enthusiastically about a product or service; it could well be their own product or service they are selling.

Spammer:

They will also befriend you, then ask for your email address and then literally bombard you with spam mail. So be wary of giving your email address out and be wary of anyone who wants to email you after you have only just ‘met’ them. They may well have thousands of spam mails lined up, ready and waiting to clog up your inbox!

The technological wizard

This is a very good forum member to meet and you can learn a lot from good souls such as these. Every forum has them; the people who will go out of their way to help you and to make sure that they can do as much as they can to help! You will know who they are by the posts that they make, where they seem to know almost everything about the topic being discussed. They will leave very long, detailed posts just to help out a total stranger. They can be worth their weight in gold on all kinds of fronts, so befriend them and perhaps you can offer them something in return as well.

Doug

Popularity: 2% [?]

other written by Doug Scott