Every niche has many forums dedicated to its discussion. The trick is in finding the right forum with the right amount of traffic to suit your Internet marketing needs. The truth is that most people imagine this process taking much longer than it needs to. Alas, you will have to put more than a little time and effort into it if you really want it to pay off for you. Only you can decide what works best for you.
It's always important to know why you're pursuing a particular marketing method. The benefits of forum marketing - this is something you should be well aware of before you try it out. Forum marketing is based on networking with other businesses and your niche audience. It's not just networking, per se, but actually relationship marketing to some degree. Building relationships with people is what it is all about, especially if you want to find success. Building your brand is so important, and with forum marketing, you can be quite successful with it. It's so easy to do this, as long as you offer value in everything you do. When you are synonymous with value, then your forum reputation will grow.
Look at the signatures if you want to see if marketing is permitted. Find out if the signatures have links. This is what happens if form marketing is allowed. Once you visit enough forums, you'll be able to tell pretty quickly what the prevailing rules are for members doing marketing in that forum. In addition, you can pretty much tell what you can do by studying the signatures of other members. For instance, you might be able to get in a few pictures and plenty of links. This will give you an indication that it's really a marketing friendly forum and you can proceed to join.
Don't even think about networking on a forum until you know who the 'top dog' on the forum is, so to speak. Most of the time there are a few people who could easily claim this role. And of course much depends on the size of the membership. There are some large marketing forums that have been around a while, and there are many people who have social influence. It isn't always easy to guess, from the outside, who will have the most influence. When it's a moderator you'll see a lot of people trying to curry favor. It's these members that you want to develop relationships with above all others.
The sense of community forums provide can be addictive. Try to keep your thoughts focused on why you're there. This is very low read this value use of your time, even though it's nice socializing with other people. You want to get the best possible value for your time.