Crowd Marketing: How It Subtly Promotes Your Brand
Crowd marketing is a strategy based on active engagement with online communities. It involves posting reviews and recommendations to boost brand awareness and attract new customers.
Example of a forum post with a product recommendation and a link
What is crowd marketing?
Crowd marketing (CM) is a set of actions aimed at creating a positive image of a company through communication with potential customers.
A crowd link is a naturally integrated hyperlink within a text that directs users to a specific resource.
Crowd marketing makes advertising less aggressive and more appealing. It leverages social interaction and opinion-sharing to create positive associations with a brand among potential customers. This is promotion without imposition.
Why use crowd marketing?
To attract new visitors to your resource. It’s essential to create truly valuable content that engages your target audience. By publishing helpful reviews and testimonials on authoritative, niche-specific platforms, you bring potential customers to your site who are ready to make a purchase.
To increase brand awareness. This requires being present where your target audience spends time online. You produce high-quality content, answer questions, and share information that interests your audience. This not only boosts your brand’s visibility but also builds a positive reputation among potential customers.
Curious about how to identify the right target audience? Unsure if you’re focusing on the right people? Check out the article "Target Audience: Why to Define It, How to Classify and Segment It."
To improve behavioral metrics for your resource. When your site attracts visitors who are genuinely interested in your product or service, they spend more time on your pages, reduce the bounce rate, and increase the likelihood of conversions.
To promote your resource in search engines. It’s not enough to optimize your site technically—you also need to actively build its online popularity. Publishing articles on niche platforms, participating in forum discussions, and creating engaging materials all drive organic traffic and enhance your site’s authority in the eyes of search engines. This approach lays a solid foundation for long-term success.
If you’re tired of your resource ranking 121st instead of 1st in search results, check out the article "SEO Optimization: What It Is and How It Works."
What content can be used
To increase brand awareness, marketers post numerous comments on various platforms, always including a mention of their website. All materials should be unique and written in a conversational tone.
Here are the types of content typically used:
1. Comments or reviews with links
You can use links both with anchor text and without it.
This is what the link looks like with an anchor. And this is what it looks like — https://altcraft.com/glossary/link-building-how-it-can-help-your-website— without an anchor.
Usually users just copy and paste the URLs of pages. This is quite cumbersome.
An example of a comment without an anchor. Source: cenaynailor.com
Non-anchor links may appear bulkier, but they look more natural.
2. Comments or reviews without direct links but mentioning the product or brand
You can share your experience using the product or service.
Who benefits from crowd marketing
Let’s look at the types of companies that can use this promotion method.
Most industries that rely on SEO promotion can benefit from crowd marketing.
This method is particularly effective for online stores as it helps attract more customers and enhances brand recognition.
Crowd promotion is also widely used by bloggers to increase their number of subscribers and boost interest in their content.
News websites can use this approach to grow traffic and improve visitor engagement on their platforms.
IT companies leverage this strategy to attract new clients by sharing valuable information and participating in niche forums.
Crowd marketing is a powerful tool, but its success is not guaranteed. To achieve the best results, it’s essential to carefully analyze several key factors:
What the resource is about. The topic of the website should align with the target audience and match the interests of potential customers. If what you post does not meet user expectations, crowd marketing will be less effective. For instance, a link to a fishing shop is unlikely to interest young mothers.
The quality of your content. High-quality content is the foundation of successful crowd promotion. It must be informative, useful, and appealing to the target audience. If the information is truly valuable, people may share it with others.
Where your customers are. If your target audience is located in a specific region, this must be considered when using crowd marketing. Choose platforms popular in that city or country, and create content that takes local characteristics and interests into account.
The number of people who visit the site. If the resource attracts only a few visitors, posting a comment there is unlikely to be effective.
How fresh the discussion is. Ideally, the most recent message in the thread should be no older than a month.
Whether there is moderation. On some platforms, links are reviewed by moderators to prevent spam or blatant advertising.
When crowd marketing is not ideal
If a business operates mainly offline and does not have a broad online audience, crowd marketing may not be the most effective tool. For instance, a small local shop would benefit more from traditional marketing methods aimed at attracting nearby customers. Promoting such a business to residents of another city is unlikely to be relevant.
Poor-quality websites. If your website is inactive, contains little useful information, and hardly appears in search results, using crowd marketing for promotion will be ineffective. For example, people are unlikely to appreciate a site with a small catalog and no product photos.
When crowd marketing is challenging to use
If your business focuses on partnerships with other brands, crowd marketing may not be the most suitable strategy. This method is more often used to promote products purchased by individual consumers.
If your business operates in a very niche market, finding appropriate platforms for natural promotion may be difficult. For example, a seller of volcanic ash figurines might struggle to find enough websites where their product would generate interest.
If your services are not frequently needed, a large advertising budget may not be justified. For instance, a business specializing in repairing broken vases would likely not benefit greatly from investing heavily in crowd marketing.
Everyday products, such as milk or butter, are usually purchased without much deliberation. As a result, crowd marketing is not particularly effective for such goods.
Where to place crowd links for website promotion
Crowd links and mentions are most commonly published on platforms such as social networks, news websites (in the comments), directories, Q&A services (e.g., Quora), platforms with guest columns (like Yagla or VC), review sites, and forums.
While forums were once very popular, they are less in demand today. However, some platforms still have active audiences (e.g., Littleone, drom.ru, E1.ru).
To find suitable platforms for placing crowd content, simply enter your key query in a search engine. You can use time filters to find more up-to-date results. The top positions are usually taken by ads, but scrolling down will often reveal forums and sites with questions, answers, and reviews.
To locate discussions on a specific topic, you can use specialized search queries such as: keyword + inurl:forum or keyword + inurl:thread.
Advantages and disadvantages of crowd marketing
Why crowd marketing benefits businesses:
Attracting engaged users. Crowd marketing drives traffic from people genuinely interested in your niche. By fostering discussions across various platforms, you increase the number of targeted visitors and improve the likelihood of sales.
Non-intrusive advertising. Crowd marketing offers an excellent way to avoid aggressive promotion. By posting reviews and testimonials on niche platforms, you naturally draw the attention of potential customers.
Building a positive brand image. This strategy helps consumers develop trust in your company. However, it’s crucial to deliver on promises to maintain the reputation you’ve created and avoid disappointing your audience.
Directing attention to specific sections. Crowd marketing allows you to guide visitors to particular pages of your website, such as product listings or service descriptions.
Downsides of crowd marketing:
Not for everyone. Crowd marketing isn’t a universal solution. It may not work for all business types. For instance, local companies might benefit more from advertising in regional media, while niche products with high price points often require a more personalized approach.
Time-consuming and effort-intensive. This strategy demands significant effort. Each piece of content must be unique and engaging, requiring specific skills. Repeating the same text across multiple forums is not an option.
Risk of being blocked. Many platforms’ moderators take a dim view of promotional content. If your activity appears spammy, your account could be banned.
Conclusion
Crowd marketing is a promotion strategy that leverages reviews and other content on social media and forums. The approach focuses on creating and sharing high-quality materials that appeal to your target audience.
This type of promotion boosts brand awareness, attracts targeted traffic, and builds a positive reputation for the company.