Seek Car Buying, Selling, Parts and Other Info in a Car Forum

An excellent place to network with other people about cars, even buy and sell them, is on the web on car forums. Many of these forums also have areas for discussing repairs, parts, auto shows, niches like imports, Toyotas (only), Jeeps (only), big trucks and a lot more.

There are also areas where people can share digital car photos, showing off your latest model in the auto show. You can upload video clips and share them, too, and more.

To start searching for active forums, start with a popular search engine like Google. Type in keywords like, "car forum," "Chevy forum," or "sports car forum" and see which listings appear. Then head to the top ones that look to be of interest, and check them out.

Highlights of Car Forums

Things to look for are in a forum are:

1) A site where you can register free and interact on some major parts of the forum at no charge. It's fine if there are private paid areas, but unless you are familiar with the forum first, you may want to test the waters by using the free areas for while.

2) A site with lots of recent activity and posts. For example, if you hit a site with under 1,000 posts, for instance, and the latest happened last year, move on. That forum is not active right now.

3) A site that peaks your interest and has rules. In short, you don't want a spam site or one with porn all over. See if there are moderators and how posting is handled. Most good places have sticky posts up at the top of the main sections with their rules listed.

Forum Networking Tips

Today there is almost an art to forum networking. Some pointers to help you get started include:

A) Start slowly until you learn the lingo there and the crowd. For instance, fill out your profile a little, leaving places for growth as you network. Leave out your personal address, email and all that so spammers and the like can't get to you.

B) Do not spam forums. If you are selling anything, do not start threads promoting it, unless there is a specific Classified Ads section for this, and even then, check the instructions so you don't get banned for spamming with an incorrect post. Most forums allow you to respond in threads started by others and include your signature (sig) file as well as mention your products or service IF the original person who started the thread asked for the info.

C) Make yourself known by being friendly and just answering posts with helpful replies. Be a friend; make a friend.

D) When you are ready to set up your own sig file, see those of other members and then get creative with yours. You could invite members to visit your site for a free report or coupon or something.

E) Use the forum's Search tool before asking questions in new threads, or starting threads on popular topics .Many topics are covered over and over, and you don't want to look inexperienced. ..or irritate long time members there.

Seek other helpful networking articles. And network!