Forum marketing is one of the best methods for promoting your online business today. It's something that can be done in any niche by any one. Granted, some products and services may not have tons of forums for them but most will.
Also, some businesses prefer to avoid it in favor of what they consider higher value marketing methods. You'll be able to meet many of your marketing goals, however, if you apply these simple tactics to your forum marketing efforts.
A 'terms of service' or (TOS) page is the most important page to read before you begin marketing on your forum. The longer you're able to remain an active member, the greater your profit potential will be. If you violate their TOS, then you can be banned for a short while or for life. It's not normally a matter of whether you've actually read the terms of service. You're responsible for knowing them and for not violating them. This is how they see it, at any rate. You must comply with the site's TOS if you want to use it for your forum marketing efforts. After arriving at a new forum, you need to surf around to check it out for a couple of reasons. Deciding to join is fine, but you need to know a few things before this happens. This matters when you're doing this for marketing purposes. Consider the fact that most forum owners are not very fond of IMers in general. If your goal is to do this, but the owner won't allow basics you, it's not going to happen. Simply read the forum rules. These will tell you what you can and can't do quickly and easily. The absence of links, and signatures, at the bottoms of posts is a clear sign online marketing is not allowed. The vast majority of forums, even if they allow signatures, don't allow you to directly market to the community anyway. They are preventing a billboard effect from taking over their forum by not allowing ads to show up.
So you want to join a forum? That's great! But before you do, understanding the difference between business, and nonbusiness related forums, is absolutely essential. Looking at the forums, make sure you can market your products there. If not, don't bother joining. First, it's a good idea to find as much information about forums for marketing purposes as you can. Of course, there are some other things you should consider. There are many specific guidelines that must be followed, and absolutely no rocket science is necessary! You can help or hinder your results with forum marketing depending on various factors. Your success online basically comes down to proper preparation, and understanding how the marketing method works. Forums are exactly the same.
So, see forum marketing as another type of marketing like social marketing. And it is easy to see that forum marketing is just another type of social marketing. They are both based upon relationship marketing and you should become very familiar with it.