For the online marketer, forum marketing is one of the simplest and most effective investments of time and attention available. 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.
You've probably heard that some Internet marketers skip this method of marketing altogether. The fact remains that Internet marketers can use this to meet many of their goals.
Marketing online can be difficult at times, especially if you have no idea about the method you are using, or even how to use it. You won't know the benefits of online forum marketing unless you understand its benefits beforehand. If you want to do forum marketing, you should know that it's very similar to networking, but with a specific audience, not just businesses. It's actually more like "relationship marketing", opposed to networking in the traditional sense. The latter is the most important of the two, and it's what you'll use in most other forms of marketing. You can build your brand, additionally, which is another reason why using forums is so different. The way you do that is by gaining exposure and offering value. So when you do this, your form reputation will skyrocket - that's what offering value will do for you. Anytime you sign up for a new forum, you should look around, and specifically search for a couple different things. You should look for some things before ever deciding to join. Since your primary purpose is to market your products and services, a few things need to be known. When it comes to forums, and online marketing, forum owners will probably not be your best friend. Should you join a forum where the owner cannot stand IMers, online marketing on that forum simply won't occur. Just go to the forum rules and they will tell you what you can and cannot do. The absence of links, and signatures, at the bottoms of posts is a clear i was reading this 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. If they did, then the entire place would be one giant billboard and people would not like it.
When you sign up for a new forum, you will have the freedom to tweak your online presence. You can create the type of personality that you choose for others to experience. But be careful when you are doing this because you can never tell what will take place in the future. If you are a really aggressive person, you can change this in the very beginning. A lot of people just are not as aggressive. But the main thing is based upon how others view you. According to your subject matter, you may want to remain in the background only. So consider your goals and how this all comes into play.
It's really easy to make this work without spending much more than five hours a week for all your forum marketing efforts regardless of how many forums you're working with. It really is an excellent ROI for your time and attention. The key is to diversify as much as possible so that your business is somewhat insulated from the instability of marketing online.