How To Market Your Articles: Newsgroups

Newsgroups are a great way to give away free articles and to get people to read your work. Newsgroups are basically groups where you interact with other online users to get information. Think of a topic and there is probably a newsgroup for it.

To find out more information about newsgroups go to

 http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/basics.html

People expect to get free information in newsgroups so what better way to market than to give them a free article you have written.

Before you start posting to newsgroups make sure you familiarize yourself with the posting guidelines. You can find an FAQ on posting to newsgroups at  http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/posting_faq.html

There are a few important things to consider about newsgroups;

 Firstly, do a search for newsgroups focused on your subject. You want to target your audience properly.

If you post the wrong information to the wrong newsgroup you can get into a lot of trouble. Nothing annoys the participants of newsgroups more than people who are posting off topic.

Before posting an article, monitor the particular newsgroups for a couple of weeks to get a feel for the type of information that is being exchanged in each newsgroup.

When you are ready to post to a newsgroup make sure you use short postings and just give them the relevant details of your free article.

For example, if you had written an article about uploading photographs to the internet, your newsgroup posting could look something like this:

Subject: Free Article on Uploading Photo’s to the Net

“I have written a short article about the tips and techniques of uploading digital photo’s to the internet to get the best results. You can read the article here ………………..”

After the ‘You can read the article here’ you would give the web page address or autoresponder address where your article can be accessed.

An article on this subject should only be posted to a newsgroup on ‘photography’ or ‘photography on the internet’ or something else similar. Remember to post to the right groups.

Also remember that you must be giving away free information in your article that is actually helpful to people. If the information does not help them in any way then why should they bother to read it?

Each time you write a new article you can post it at the relevant newsgroups.

After you have written a few articles and people start to recognize your work they will shortly see you as an expert in your particular field. This will lead them to ask you questions and advice. They will be looking to you for the best information.

A Quick and Easy Guide to Posting to Newsgroups

Go to  http://groups.google.com

Type in your topic in the search box and click search or just browse the groups looking for newsgroups related to your topic.

Monitor the newsgroups you have selected (say 12) for about 2 weeks to get a feel for each group.

After this period post a message to each newsgroup offering your free article.
Include a link in the body of your post back to your web site where your article is stored.

Repeat this process once a week with other free articles you have written.

Now you are on your way to successfully using newsgroups. By the way, you will stand out as 99% of posters on newsgroups are trying to sell something.

You are just giving away a free article!