It's almost impossible to find a niche that doesn't have some relevant forum dedicated to it. Then, if they have good traffic and allow it, you can implement a universal forum marketing strategy that can transform your business within a year. You don't have to make a long-term effort in order to put this plan into place. It takes time and some patience to extract the most value from forums. Only you can decide what works best for you.
This article discusses forum marketing, which is why you are reading the article in the first place. Don't gravitate towards forums that don't want you to market products. Numerous forums do not want people to advertise their products or services. Of course if the owner sells ad space, then he or she will be happy to take your money. Find out which forums are which. But you can find another one because the internet has tons of them.
Look at the signatures if you want to see if marketing is permitted. Find out if the signatures have links. This is how it is done if forum marketing is not frowned upon. After you have seen many forums, you will be able to tell what to do in terms of forum marketing rules. Also, you can determine what can be done just by looking at the other signatures. For instance, you can often see multiple links with graphics, etc. This will give you an indication that it's really a marketing friendly forum and you can proceed to join.
Figure out who has a lot of influence on the forums before you really dig into your own networking efforts. There may be a few contenders for top spot. The membership numbers will also influence this. There are some large marketing forums that have been around a while, and there are many people who have social influence. This is something their explanation that isn't constant throughout forums. Sometimes it's the moderators who have the most influence. It's usually easy to recognize the people who are 'leaders' on the forum as they are the ones others are trying to get the attention of. Once you've identified them, it's time to start building relationship with these members.
Even if you belong to ten forums in your niche, you can be an active member in all of them in less than an hour a day, five days a week. 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.