This article is to help you participate in the Brazil Expat and Travel Community. This website has many sections, one for real estate ads, a directory of Brazil websites, a blog, a section of English News, articles and more importantly a forum.
The forum is where everyone can interact and share experiences, thoughts, opinions, questions and anything else, but we like to keep the topics related to Brazil!
The people who come here seem to fall within one of these general categories:
- People looking for information and have questions about Brazil
- People looking to share information, opinions and experiences about Brazil
- People looking to do some self-promotion with products or services about Brazil
- People looking to do promotion for others with products or services about Brazil
- People looking to promote stuff that has nothing to do with Brazil or simply post a URL and never return.
Everyone is welcome, of course, except that last category! This is a community site about Brazil built upon the interesting participation of the members. If you come here to do promotions for someone else, make sure you read and study this articles! We're a social network about Brazil, if you are interested in a different topic we are sure to have another site that is relevant.
Please note that all messages should be appropriate for all ages!
People looking for information on Brazil
This is really the majority of the people participating in the Brazil Expat and Travel Community. Yes, we consider just reading to be participation! For those who participate by making posts and replies, remember many more people are reading than writing! A simple message may reach hundreds, or even thousands of interested people.
It is really easy to participate this way. There are two main indexes to the Brazil forum:
- Topic Index
- Most Recent Messages
You can use the messages organized by topic or the most recent messages first.
Although you are welcome to read the forum without registering, if you register and read the forum while you are logged in, the system will remember which messages and replies you've read. That way you can immediately see any new replies or messages, and immediately participate more actively when a question or comment comes to mind.
We also encourage you to participate in a more active manner by sharing your opinions and experiences. Of course if you have any questions, please feel free to make a new post.
People looking to share information, opinions and experiences about Brazil
We hope you will share your questions, experiences and opinions in the Brazil Expat and Travel Forum. It is really quite easy.
Please register so you can post your messages and replies and participate more fully in our social network:
- You can include a link (to a directly relevant website) with your post
- You can receive messages from other members without disclosing your email address
- You are kept up to date with new messages and replies
- You can make public tags on messages of interest to you
- You can promote your business or services including a free banner advertisement
There are two methods to post in the Brazil Forum:
- Post new messages
- Reply to current messages
Posting a new message starts a new conversation on a new topic. It is always best to post a new message and not a reply, if your message is not directly relevant to what you are reading.
To post a new message click "post new message" in the menu bar. Then simply complete the form with your message title (be interesting and descriptive) and your message, and select the best topic from the menu.
Try to use a descriptive title, a title of simple "help" hardly gives insight into your message and many won't bother reading it. Something like, "I need help with ... " or "Does anyone know how to..." would be much more effective. For the best readability use normal capitalization and make very short paragraphs.
Please do not cut and paste long pieces of text from other websites (that is what links are for) and please do not post the same message more than once in the forum.
Messages cannot have "words" longer than 24 letters in them. This was originally done to prevent people from entering long lines of garbage causing formatting and readability problems. It also prevents many URL's (web addresses) from being put in messages. Short or long, URL's are not allowed in messages. To include a link, please put it in the special space for it.
Posting a new reply continuing an conversation that is already going on. Some conversations get quite long. 25 replies are shown on a page. To see the next 25 replies, you need to click to the next page. Before posting a reply it is best to see you have read all the replies.
Posting a reply is much like posting a new message. However, you don't have to select the topic. You are required to enter a title (a brief summary of your reply). This is different from other forums and is to provide nicer looking format (also it allows the administrator to convert your reply to a new message if it is more appropriate that way).
For more information about posting links and self promotion for your business and services:
People looking to do some self-promotion with products or services about Brazil
Our Brazil Community is open to everyone. Those with products or services to promote are as welcome as those who are just browsing or sharing their personal experiences. This section will give a little advice on how you can effectively do self promotion on the Brazil Expat and Travel website.
First, please keep in mind that this forum is a social community of people interested in Brazil. It is not appropriate to make direct commercial announcements in the forum. We do encourage self promotion in our community. Simply create a "expert" page and put all of your business information, contact information, link(s) for your business website (if any) there.
You will then be listed in our "experts" section, ie: products and services. Additionally, all of your forum posts will automatically include a link to your "expert" page, so you can participate socially without worrying about selling.
The key is effective self promotion here is to be interesting and relevant. The more you participate in an interesting and relevant manner (relevant to the Brazil Expat and Travel Forum) the more the other members will see you as an expert. When they have the need for a product or service they will first look to those they feel are experts!
Because there is an expert page for your business on our site, you can use our forum in a creative manner, for example:
- Being fun, creative and interesting
- Telling stories
- Being interesting
- Being informative
- Asking questions
- Answering questions
- Including a link to a useful resource (not your own)
When making forum posts, please keep in mind these thoughts:
To build social engagement it is best to participate as socially and interestingly as possible. Don't worry about selling your product or service. That will come automatically. In the book, The Science of Influence: How to Get Anyone to Say "Yes" in 8 Minutes or Less!, the author Kevin Hogan describes it this way:
As people develop relationships with their clients they become friends. Friendships grow and become special, and future sales are all but assured with the ongoing relationship.
In the online, social media world, those friendships are created by true social engagement. That is, participation on an interesting and informative basis, not a one-way blasting of advertisements.
You can read more about effective social engagement.
Your forum posts will be automatically linked to your expert page. Please review and edit your expert page so that is offers a great sales pitch:
When making forum posts try to avoid:
- Talking about your business, products or services
- Linking to your home page
Also keep in mind that our social network is different from some of the big networks in several important ways.
But, first, these are the obvious advantages of the big social network:
- Lots of users.
- Easy connection with friends.
And some of the big social network disadvantages:
- Lack focus: connections based on friends, not based on topics or niches.
- Closed system (you only reach friends, followers, etc).
- Some could be likened to a stadium full of people yelling and no one listening.
- Non-seo friendly links.
How Brazil Expat and Travel differs:
- Open system with unlimited potential for people to read your posts and your expert page.
- Experts are highlighted to stand out from the crowd.
- Focuses on topic/niches, ie: you will reach people interested in your message, not yours or someone else's friend.
- All links are SEO friendly.
We offer a focused niche/topical environment where you are set apart as an 'expert.' Your expert page is the automatic self-promotion to bridge the gap between your social interaction on our site and your business. Be the person whose posts are ones everyone wants to read and comment on and you'll be the first one they think of when they are ready to buy a product or service you sell.
People looking to do promotion for others with products or services about Brazil
If you've been hired to promote someone else's products or services here you have your work cut out for you. If you are simply making uninteresting, short posts with a link to your client's website you will have no success. They will be deleted and your account blocked. Read the above section.
You might find it is best to get your client to participate directly in our Brazil Expat and Travel Community.
People looking to promote stuff that has nothing to do with Brazil or simply post a URL and never return.
This website is a community about Brazil. We have no interest in other topics (though we have a number of other forums that might fit your topic). RELEVANT is a key word here. If you have a message that is not related to the topic of this website, it is not welcome here.
A Note about Links
We ask that links you include with a forum post be directly related to the topic of your message. That means they should go to the specific page in a site that relates to your link, not a general home page. Some people would refer to these as "deep links". The objective is simply to make it as easy as possible for people to get additional information.
Additionally, we don't allow "tiny urls," "redirects," or "affliate links". You can read more about that: No redirects, no affiliate links.
| 
