It's almost impossible to find a niche that doesn't have some relevant forum dedicated to it. The trick is in finding the right forum with the right amount of traffic to suit your Internet marketing needs. The entire plan doesn't have to take nearly as long as you might imagine. It takes time and some patience to extract the most value from forums. Only you can decide what works best for you.
If you want to be viewed as an expert in your niche, you must begin by working to create a good reputation. Lacking either one will render your results to less than desired. But before you can accomplish those two objectives, you have to be seen. But, you don't want to spend every waking moment on any one forum. This is only a small part of your overall marketing strategy.
On the other hand, if you dive right in and make a mountain of posts, it annoys the long-term members. Find out which hours see the greatest amount of activity and make your forum posts when the largest number of people are generally present. Focus on providing quality posts if you're really interested in becoming influential on the forum. After arriving at a new forum, you need to surf around to check it out for a couple of reasons. You should look for some things before ever deciding to join. This matters when you're doing this for marketing purposes. For instance, some forum owners and members despise online marketers. Should you join a forum where the owner cannot stand IMers, online marketing on that forum simply won't occur. All you have to do is read the forum rules to understand what is permissible. More than likely, if there are not any links or signatures at the bottom of each post, then probably not. The vast majority of forums, even if they allow signatures, don't allow you to directly market to the community anyway. To prevent people from overrunning about his their forum with ads (like a giant cyber billboard), this is typically why it is not allowed.
It doesn't take long to see that some people always seem to be coming up with new ideas and beginning new threads. Sometimes, they are viewed in a dim light by other forum members. So, even if you have a lot of great ideas for threads, spread them out over time.
Don't neglect the other threads on the board. People in forums are generally pretty much the same because it all relates to human nature. Even in this type of situation, you can't always follow along with others just because it's expected of you. These are the gray areas in forum marketing you'll experience. If you really want to make a positive impression, find different ways to share your knowledge. It is possible that, after reading this, that you may already know most of what we have discussed. Other than specific rules for each forum, most of what you have to know is just social common sense. Be a good community member and that will take you most of the way.