For almost any niche you can focus on as an Internet marketer there are nearly an infinite number of message boards or forums that address it. All that's needed now is to find the forums that get the lion's share of the traffic in your niche so you can put your plan into motion. You don't have to make a long-term effort in order to put this plan into place. With all good things, however, time and care are required in order to get a maximum ROI. It's up to you what the best choice might be.
Most forum members act according to their personality. Others will be more extrovert or even introvert. So just be yourself and let people see your real personality unless it's highly offensive. If you're more reserved and unsure, then just observe the forum until you become comfortable enough to contribute. This is what is known as lurking and many people do it until they feel comfortable enough to contribute to the forum. You might be too afraid to make a first post. Just post in other threads and add something to the conversation. After arriving at a new forum, you need to surf around to check it out for a couple of reasons. Deciding to join is fine, but you need to know a few things before this happens. When you are doing forum postings for marketing purposes, it really matters. If you want to market your products, the forum owners may not feel too kindly about your intentions. If your goal is to do this, but the owner won't allow you, it's not going to happen. Forum rules are typically the easiest their website way to find out if you can do online marketing are not. More than likely, if there are not any links or signatures at the bottom of each post, then probably not. A good portion of forums frown upon direct marketing in forum posts to begin with. If they did, then the entire place would be one giant billboard and people would not like it.
It is very much worth the time it takes to sit back and figure out who's who on the forum before you start to network on a particular forum. There may be a few contenders for top spot. Of course, the size of the forum, and its membership, will have some impact on that. The longer the forums have been around and more members it has, the greater the number of people who influence the forums will be. The influencing figures are different on different forums. With senior members and moderators you'll often be able to recognize others attempting to garner favor. It's these members that you want to develop relationships with above all others. 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. Remember that contributions matter. The more you contribute, the more the community will accept you, which is beneficial for your marketing efforts.