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Jeremy

The Reality Of Running Forums

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by
Jeremy
on 04-10-2009 at 06:10 AM (1638 Views)
Over the past few weeks I have spoken with a few affiliates who are interested in creating an online community or adding a forum to their existing poker affiliate site. Quite frankly I think there is a lot of misconceptions about operating forums. They are no where near as profitable as many would think.

I think the reason most people want to run a community versus a static content site is because it is something tangible where you can see real activity from members every day. However the unfortunate reality is that active forum members do not equate to $$ in your pocket. In fact, active forum members are probably the worst when it comes to getting people to click on banners and leave your site.

I have spoken about this a few times in various speaker sessions, but think about it for a minute. Whether it be a community like 2+2, or even Facebook, people come to these places to be a part of the community, not necessarily to click out to another site. On the flipside, when someone comes to your site from Google after searching for "best online poker bonus" or whatever, they are genuinly looking to find information and then leave (hopefully thtough your aff. link).

This isn't to discourage anyone from starting a forum. I just think people should think about what they wish to accomplish with a forum. If your entire goal is to convert players and make money, a forum isn't the best way to go about it, SEO is.

On the other hand, if your looking to create a community of friends that you can nurture and grow, and perhaps make a little money in the process, then by all means, a forum is probably a good idea.

The other thing to keep in mind if you are starting a forum is this; There are hundreds of existing poker forums already out there. What is going to make your forum unique or different from the rest of the forums already in the market? What is your member acquisition strategy? How will you keep members active?

This post is just some food for thought regarding running an online community. In my next blog post, I'll share some tips and ideas for those who are planning on forging ahead and starting a forum.

One thing I always say about running a forum is that it's the equivalent of being in a daily soap opera, however without the movie star pay, and without the luxury if sleeping with hot chicks every day.

I welcome comments or questions from affiliates who are already running a forum or thinking about running a forum.

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  1. Graham's Avatar
    I wrote this response to a thread here last night about forums:

    Don't take this the wrong way, I am actually saying this to save you some time. Why do you think people will want to post on your forum over one of the 100's of other poker forums out there? I run a pretty large forum yet even I spend a lot of time posting on 2+2 as there are so many more people and their BBV4L section is hilarious.

    I've tried the paying for posting and all sorts of other stuff and it doesn't really work. You want quality over quantity and to achieve that you need to attract quality posters (not cheap people looking to make a fast buck). If people come to your forum and see a bunch of crap posts, it doesn't matter how busy it "appears" they aren't going to stick around.

    Anyway, what I am trying to say is if you want your forum to succeed, do something that nobody else is doing. Have some kind of a niche. Otherwise, I am afraid you are probably just wasting your time. I had a similar forum to yours (not my main one that is still good) with around 3-4000 members (though I am sure a nice percentage of those were spammers) that I just closed down the other day because it was just a waste of time. Ya, maybe I didn't put enough effort into it, but I realized there was no point as it wasn't really doing anything that other forums weren't doing.

    Oh ya, and running a forum is a real pain in the ass. I spend probably a good 8+ hours a day on my forum when I should be working on things that will actually make me money.

    Anyway, don't let this discourage you, just take this as a reality check to do something different because the way you are headed right now, I can almost guarantee you it will be yet another epic fail of a poker forum.
  2. Jeremy's Avatar
    LOL, Graham you know exactly where I am coming from when I talk about making money on static sites versus forums.
  3. tiburon's Avatar
    I agree with the stress, babysitting and time sink.
    But if you wanna do a non english forum and your competition in that country is not that great you should do it.
    For me it was a great way to run poker leagues, stay in contact with players for deals and we were all sweating when players from our country went deep at wsop or ept or Pokerstars World Cup (nations).
  4. themike537's Avatar
    What about the other benefits of forums? Even if the actual members never make a dime for you, you still get the added benefit of tons of unique pages added to your site. Also, if your forum is actually something unique it'll attract a bunch of natural links as your members post about it at other sites.

    I'm in the process of building my first forum now, and really I don't care if the members make me money, I'm more interested in the added content/natural links that I hope to build.
  5. Graham's Avatar
    Mike, building a forum takes time, and lots of it. Sure those added pages are great, and will create some backlinks, but could your time be put to better use writing pages and getting better quality links elsewhere? You have to really think about that. Anyway, if you are doing something different then it won't matter as you will hopefully have unique types of posts, but if you are just doing a typical poker forum get ready for a lot of wasted time.

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