This ebook is about monetizing your online forums.
But, before we dive too deeply into the various methods that you can utilize to generate revenue from your online community, I want to first talk about why it can be important to do so and why making money from what you do isn’t a bad thing to think about, even if some may tell you that it is.
Mentioning “money” alongside “online community” or “online forums” can sometimes be a contentious thing to do. I understand why, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s necessary to be on the defensive about money or monetization.
For some people, if they hear that you are considering how you can generate revenue, or more revenue, from your community, they leap to the worst possible conclusion. For example, they may interpret you as meaning:
• “I want to get every last penny I can out of my community.”
• “I am going to fill the page with advertisements!”
• “I don’t care about the community or about usability – it’s all about the money!”
While these things can be true, they are not always and they are certainly not true of every publisher.
If you know me, you know there is no greater champion of online community than me. I love this space, have invested in this space and care very deeply about it. I defend it vigorously from those looking to abuse it for a quick buck.
If one wishes to see revenue as an evil thing and to look at those who work to generate it as people who are trying to milk their community for all that it’s worth, you can apply that to most anything that generates an income. A consultant can try to milk his clients for all they are worth. A grocery store can try to milk their customers for all they are worth. A publication can try to milk their subscribers for all they are worth.
But, that probably shouldn’t be your objective. Usually, it’s not a great recipe for success. Generating revenue might be one of your goals, but milking people shouldn’t be. That implies that you are trying to get as much money out of them as possible without any consideration of other factors.
That’s bad and it ignores a simple truth: if someone feels like you are taking advantage of them, to some degree you lose them. And that’s bad for the operation.
If a consultant wants to keep their clients and continue to generate an income, they must treat their clients with respect and deliver value. If the client feels that they are being taken advantage of, the client leaves.
Similarly, if someone who is managing an online forum wishes to generate an income, they must aim to create a valuable community or resource that delivers value to its members. If the members are unhappy with the experience of using the community, they may leave.
Balance. That’s what it’s all about. With that in mind, consider these two scenarios:
1. You place 500 ads on every page, charge people $1,000 a month to access the community and don’t care how people feel about the ads.
2. You don’t generate any income at all.
Now, quite obviously, there is a very big gap between these two situations. There is a lot of room in between the two extremes.
It is exceptionally important that managing an online community should be approached as a serious responsibility, because it is one. If you want to do it well, it takes a lot of time and skill. Whether it is a hobby or your full time thing, it is serious and I believe it is appropriate for those managing an online community to generate revenue from it, in a manner in which they feel is appropriate.
If they do it in an unethical or shortsighted way, people will vote with their feet and leave. It is all part of the equation of community management. There is a line, which differs from forum to forum, and it is something that I am personally always very aware of. So should you be.
An online community is not some special, unique medium that is somehow meant to be devoid of revenue making. It is a website, like any other, that utilizes resources, both human resources and financial ones.
When I enjoy a website or forum, I don’t think that the person or people behind it should have to toil away for the rest of their lives on what I enjoy and never earn an income. Instead, I want them to be as successful as they can be – wealthy even, if it’s possible, without damaging their brand or community.
And I believe that a majority of people who partake in a free service of some kind understand that. If an online forum is not financially supported in some way, it is usually always a hobby or a side thing and when it comes time to cut things out of your life, because you have a family to feed, it makes sense for that side project to go.
Many great forums are run as hobbies. If you are able to sustain that, awesome. I have total respect for that. I just believe that you have the choice to do what you want, either way.
But, perhaps, even if it is a hobby, you reach a point where you can’t dedicate the time you want to it because, well, you have to live. To be able to make it full time, you have to be able to live and accomplish your life goals. It’s fine for managing a community to be a hobby, but all communities have financial and/or personal costs and if those costs become too much to bear, the stability of the forum is threatened. Revenue generation can be a natural part of the process of securing a forum’s future.
An online community can take a lot of work to maintain, to the point where it can become a full time role. I believe that it is perfectly acceptable for that community to be monetized like any other web service – like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and countless others. The purity of these services isn’t threatened because the people behind them need to live.
Of course, some will disagree with all of what I have just said. The great thing is that you don’t have to generate revenue. I wouldn’t say anything negative about anyone who chooses not to generate any revenue from an online forum (whether it be through ads, leads for their business or something else) and I would hope, at the same time, that they would not say anything negative about those that do.
There is no one way. And with that said, let’s get started.
Patrick O’Keefe