It's always a smart idea to have a plan of action for everything you do in business including forum marketing. It will be easy to get what you want, but you should have an idea of what that is and how to use forums to get it. Many of the online marketers who become successful do well because they think this way about business. First, they focus on learning the ends and out of assorted marketing strategies. Then they continue to study this information and find the best way to use it to their advantage.
Of course there are some pages that are vitally important to take note of before beginning your marketing. One of which is the TOS or 'terms of service' page. 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. Part of your responsibility is to know about them so that you do not violate them. Either way, they feel like it's your responsibility to know the TOS, and it is when you think about it. If you're planning to market on the forum then you need to know and understand the terms they've established for doing so. After arriving at a new forum, you need to surf around to check it out for a couple of reasons. You need to think about why you want to join this forum, which can be determined by looking around. This matters when you're doing this for marketing purposes. For instance, some forum owners and members despise online marketers. So the owner will not allow any kind of marketing to take place. All you have to do is read the forum rules to understand what is permissible. The conspicuous absence of signatures or links in them will alert you to that, as well. Regardless of the type of forum, direct advertising is usually not allowed. To prevent people from overrunning their forum with ads (like a giant cyber billboard), this is typically why it is not allowed.
Just provide value in a relaxed way that people can relate to. Going to forums will give you the chance to form relationships with others. There are those that will always try to belittle you. There will be useful site members to like to complain. A majority of member will ignore these people, which will make them drop out of sight. This is the way that forums operate when it comes to social rules. So you have to assess yourself and what you consider to be your priority. If you want forum marketing to work for you, then make the necessary changes.
You can work a lot of forums and still only devote about five hours a week to the effort and, bring in a ton of profit from forum marketing. That's nothing when you're talking about high-value marketing activity. Of course diversifying is the best bet to keep your business insulated from the ups and downs of doing business online.