It's always a smart idea to have a plan of action for everything you do in business including forum marketing. You can reach many of your goals, but you need to know what they are and what forums can give you. Many of the online marketers who become successful do well because they think this way about business. First, they research and get information on different marketing methods. Then they take this information and find the best way to use it.
Most forum members act according to their personality. There will be many who will be either introverted or extroverted. So, unless you are a rude person, just be yourself. if you are not that outgoing, don't feel pressured to talk on the forum just yet. Many people like to do this, which is known as lurking. You might be too afraid to make a first post. Just respond to the other threads that people have created. After arriving at a new forum, you need to surf around to check it out for a couple of reasons. Looking around is essential for deciding on whether or not this forum is for you. These things will matter since online marketing is what you are there for. When it comes to forums, and online marketing, forum owners will probably not be your best friend. This is something that will probably not occur if the owner is not very fond of IMers like yourself. You can sometimes find that out by reading the forum rules. 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 their forum with ads (like a giant cyber billboard), this is typically why it is not click for info allowed.
When you become a forum member, only you can determine how the others will see you. You can create the type of personality that you choose for others to look at more info experience. But do this with caution because you never know what will happen. If you tend to be loud, you can stop this and do not do it any longer. Many people are not the aggressive types or the Type A or alpha male business killers you are. But everything hinges on how well others see you. Based upon your circumstances, you might want everyone to know who you are. So do not lose sight of goals and how all of this will play into things.
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 doesn't get much higher in value than that when it comes to marketing. Internet marketing can have a lot of ups and downs if you don't diversify your efforts a great deal.