Dude. Do both. Contribute 5 posts a day to whatever forum you're on and provide some valuable insight to help the community. Gauge the type of demeanor the forum has and commit to it. For example, WF is full of wise-asses. If your posts are vanilla and lack very little humor, you probably won't make it here. On the other hand, if you're on a very conservative forum, don't go telling racial jokes and get banned.
Article marketing is simple. Write an article a day. Can't think of anything to write? Get ideas by searching Google Blogs/News for recent news about your niche.
I can't imagine 5 posts and 1 article per day is going to take more than an hour of your precious time.