Get In, Get Out: How to Participate in Real Estate Forums

Online real estate forums? Didn't those go out of style in the mid-1990s along with dial-up modems?

Hardly! Online real estate forums are alive and well. They are a terrific place to learn, share your expertise and quite possibly grow your business.

The do's

Watch and wait. Before you dive into a real estate forum, read through it. Look at how people share and link information. Get a feel for the general vibe of the forum. Look for active participants (most forums indicate how many contributions a person has made) and observe their behavior. Forums tend to develop a style over time, and jumping in before you understand it can make your contributions seem out of place.

Read the Terms of Use. You know the pages and pages of tiny type that you are supposed to read before clicking 'I agree,' but no one ever reads? Yeah, you should read it. The agreement is especially important for forums because that's where you'll find the rules of engagement, like whether links are allowed in posts and signatures, or whether self-promotion is allowed, discouraged or even forbidden.

Complete your user profile. Your profile is a great way for other forum users to learn more about you — and want to engage with you. Write a short intro, upload a photo, and include links to your website, blog and Facebook page.

Post in the right section. Some forums have one or two main sections or topic areas. Others may have dozens. You'll make friends with the forum administrators if you post your questions in the right section. If you don't, your posts will probably go unseen or unanswered. Keep the forum tidy by posting in the proper place.

Be helpful. If you join a forum and start talking about yourself or your business, you're likely to be ignored, and you might even get kicked out. Internet forums are first and foremost a place to seek help and get answers. So be helpful and answer questions. As you build up credibility, you'll get better responses to your own questions.

The don'ts

Be a troll. Trolls are people who sow discontent in Internet groups and forums. You'll find them in every forum, monopolizing conversations, stirring up resentment and generally being a pain. Don't do that.

Make it about linking. Backlinks — hyperlinks from other websites that point to your website — are an important aspect of search engine optimization (SEO). Some SEO experts encourage people to join forums and post links to their own websites to optimize backlinking. Again, this comes across as unhelpful and won't make you any friends in the forum. Join and participate in forums to learn and share, not to get more backlinks.

Make it all about you. Yes, you want to learn. Yes, you want to meet people, get to know them and potentially do business with them. But you won't be well received if you join a forum and make it all about you. Be helpful, ask and answer questions, participate nicely and those other things will come with time. Make it about the people in the forum, not you.

Much of how to best participate in real estate forums is common sense. Unfortunately, common sense often seems to fly out the window when it's combined with the Internet. Sitting behind a keyboard can sometimes bring out the crazy in people. While the platform is electronic, the people participating in forums are living, breathing human beings. Treat them with dignity and respect, and you'll enjoy participating in forums that much more.

Popular real estate forums

There are countless real estate forums that cover every imaginable topic. Here are a few of the most popular:

• Zillow Advice — two main sections, real estate consumers and agent-to-agent
• BiggerPockets — aimed at real estate investors
• Real Estate Webmasters — active forum with lots of sections and solid SEO advice
• Agents Online — in existence since 1998, many categories and tens of thousands of posts