You can get more from forum marketing than what you probably think. If you become familiar with these benefits you will help your marketing campaigns and become more profitable. If you have not been marketing in forums then you might have missed some good business opportunities. It is so obvious that you may have overlooked them.
A 'terms of service' or (TOS) page is the most important page to read before you begin marketing on your forum. This is where you'll find out what's acceptable so you can enjoy a long and profitable relationship with the site. It's never wise to violate a forum's TOS. Doing so can get you banned from the site for life. It doesn't matter to them if you've read the TOS or not. If you violate a TOS, then they assume you've read them and violated it anyway. This is how they see it, at any rate. Compliance is not an option.
Forum marketing requires building relationships before you can really get started. You can also view this as networking and that would be correct, too. For the most part, however, building relationships works better than building networks. Right or wrong, people like doing business with people they like even if they don't really know them. Plan all your actions according to this. If you're serious about building forum relationships you'll want to keep familiarity in mind. You have to be there and contribute on the forums regularly if you really want to build a serious presence.
Just be the kind of expert that is laid back and is there to help others. When you go to forums for a period of time you will start to bond with others. Some people will always come off as arrogant. You'll see folks who are habitually negative and complain a lot. Many others will just overlook their comments, which will make them leave eventually. These are the unwritten rules of social and forum etiquette and they're very real. So you have to determine what is important to you. Learn how to follow the rules if you want to be successful.
So, understand that social Source marketing and forum marketing are somewhat alike. When you look at it, forum marketing is another way to do social marketing. They are very closely connected to relationship marketing, which is why you should learn as much as you can about it.