How to promote your products on community websites

Community websites can be a really good place to promote your products, but you have to know how. A community is not just about taking, it is also about giving.  This is something people tend to forget.

When talking about community websites, we mean for example forums and Question & Answer websites. A few good examples are:

• Stack Overflow – One of the largest Q&A websites for developers.
• Devshed Forums – Forum with support for many programming languages
• Quora – A general purpose Q&A website, but with a  lot of development related questions.
• iPhone Dev SDK – iOS developer forums.
• The Official Apple developer forums – Apple’s official forums.
• iOS Developer Forum – Another iOS  developer forum.
• Android Forums – Forum for Android developers.

When using any forum it is important not to spam. Use the following tips to promote your items in a descent way:

• Find relevant questions – Pointing to your product should be good value for the person asking the question. If not, don’t post.
• Answer questions without any self benefit – It is fine to promote your product, but don’t do so with everything answer you give. Instead help people out. People will appreciate it and will be more willing to help you.
• Add links to your profile and signatures – When answering questions,  a lot of people will read your answers overtime and read your profile.
• Always mention the product is yours – Just be honest. People will suspect it anyway and will otherwise see you as a Spammer.

What are your experiences? Let us know by leaving a comment.