How profitable is it to run a forum?
- Thread starter justmeseo
- Start date
lusya0710
Registered Member
- Sep 25, 2021
- 84
- 20
I also consider creating a forum in one specific lucrative niche. I don't fully agree with those who claim that FB groups are better. Information can be easily lost in that groups, but in a forum - never!!! Currently am in a stage calling "try to earn investment money" 
sklavier
Registered Member
- Dec 20, 2021
- 62
- 43
It may or may not be profitable, but first you have to solve what I call the "critical mass problem". I have thought about forums off and on quite a bit over the past few years. At one point, I added a forum section to my blog website I had (I still have the blog but not the forum part of it). The problem was, no-one was joining the forum organically because there wasn't really much going on in my forum section, even though I was getting visitors to my blog. So you have to have enough "critical mass" on the forum itself to make it take off. This cuts into profitability, because you either have to spend money, or time, or both, to have some fake accounts on your forum that are talking to each other to keep a sort of basal level of activity on the place until it starts taking off.
If you have good marketing skills and/or a good social media following, you might be able to shortcut or sidestep all of that and launch straight into a decent amount of signups and activity on your forum. But I think that is the exception rather than the rule.
If you do go ahead with it, I would recommend not focusing too early on how much to charge for memberships etc (if that is your monetization model), but rather to start by doing something like offering free signups for those joining by a certain date, as part of your launch. You can say something like "we may be charging a membership fee later but if you join now, you will get a free membership" (or a year's free membership no credit card required, or free membership for the first X number of people to join, or whatever it is you want to offer). Even though you think you might be losing money at the start, consider that these early adopters are saving you $ or time that you would otherwise have to spend to create an ongoing level of activity on the site.
Also there are other ways you can monetize once you have some activity (selling banner ad space yourself, also promotional posts, sticky posts, etc). As well as of course regular display ads from ad networks etc, affiliate banners etc.
No matter how much of a truly-needed unfilled niche it is, and no matter how genuinely valuable the forum will be to others, if there isn't much activity going on there when a new person comes to see it, that person won't actually bother joining. I'm not saying you should give up on the idea! I'm just saying proceed with caution. It wasn't a good fit for *me*, but then again I didn't have much in the way of marketing skills or social media following, and I didn't have that much traffic on my site anyway (altho some). I would simply say that if you pursue it, you need strengths not just in bringing people to the forum itself, but more importantly in ensuring you solve the "critical mass problem" first by having a certain level of ongoing activity on your forum. This is a bigger part of the initial investment of time/money than people might think if they haven't tried hosting a forum before.
If you have good marketing skills and/or a good social media following, you might be able to shortcut or sidestep all of that and launch straight into a decent amount of signups and activity on your forum. But I think that is the exception rather than the rule.
If you do go ahead with it, I would recommend not focusing too early on how much to charge for memberships etc (if that is your monetization model), but rather to start by doing something like offering free signups for those joining by a certain date, as part of your launch. You can say something like "we may be charging a membership fee later but if you join now, you will get a free membership" (or a year's free membership no credit card required, or free membership for the first X number of people to join, or whatever it is you want to offer). Even though you think you might be losing money at the start, consider that these early adopters are saving you $ or time that you would otherwise have to spend to create an ongoing level of activity on the site.
Also there are other ways you can monetize once you have some activity (selling banner ad space yourself, also promotional posts, sticky posts, etc). As well as of course regular display ads from ad networks etc, affiliate banners etc.
No matter how much of a truly-needed unfilled niche it is, and no matter how genuinely valuable the forum will be to others, if there isn't much activity going on there when a new person comes to see it, that person won't actually bother joining. I'm not saying you should give up on the idea! I'm just saying proceed with caution. It wasn't a good fit for *me*, but then again I didn't have much in the way of marketing skills or social media following, and I didn't have that much traffic on my site anyway (altho some). I would simply say that if you pursue it, you need strengths not just in bringing people to the forum itself, but more importantly in ensuring you solve the "critical mass problem" first by having a certain level of ongoing activity on your forum. This is a bigger part of the initial investment of time/money than people might think if they haven't tried hosting a forum before.
lovelysound3
Newbie
- Nov 27, 2021
- 12
- 3
Forums can be good but you need to monetize in a way not only depending on the adsense as may be to less money to mantain the forum but the most important is to be a popular forum so peoples will want to be part of it.
VortexAlpha
Senior Member
- Sep 13, 2021
- 1,053
- 267
It seems like a really good idea, I think forums are gaining back the popularity they once had, so if you found a niche that isn't yet covered that much, you can have a decent chance to succeed. In my opinion, it would be better to first start with a public forum, because as someone who is new in the market you need to attract the audience, establish some kind of a reputation, recognition across the web, and so on. Once the things start developing you can present some paid options, in fact, most of the forums have mixed public and private threads, so you can do it like that in the later stages. Start slowly, invest in advertising the new forum, and then after some time you can monetize it in a bigger way.
- Nov 16, 2011
- 19,799
- 11,280
I always wanted to start a forum. It is something that can grow to become a cash cow in future. After a certain point of time, there will be very less work involved but it will give very good returns. You can try it but in beginning do in partnership with someone who has run a forum.
Black Promo
Registered Member
- Dec 21, 2021
- 73
- 26
If your topic is unique and interesting, and there is little information about it or exists in other forums, then you can make paid access and it will be successful because it will be useful to other people
ValerieMeshko
Junior Member
- Aug 11, 2021
- 181
- 48
I agree with the post above.
If you know how to sell, it will be profitable.
If you don't know how, then whatever you create is meaningless without knowing how to sell.
If you know how to sell, it will be profitable.
If you don't know how, then whatever you create is meaningless without knowing how to sell.
Billy Batts
BANNED
- Dec 16, 2016
- 5,883
- 11,015
Exactly, FB groups utterly suck!! Can't find shit, the overview sucks, most people use their real profile, FB banning, deleting censoring shit, it's just a cluster fuck by product of FB.I also consider creating a forum in one specific lucrative niche. I don't fully agree with those who claim that FB groups are better. Information can be easily lost in that groups, but in a forum - never!!! Currently am in a stage calling "try to earn investment money"
It doesn't even need to be unique because almost nothing is unique anymore. It's all about design, speed, user friendly, effort and marketing.
There are several forums that I've seen that came to live in the past few years, ok most of them blackhat forums but they all have paid upgrades and I've seen many of them upgraded their account.
Surfdbreak
Regular Member
- Dec 14, 2021
- 300
- 266
The most successful forums I’ve seen are built around a product. They’re affinity groups.
A lot of these products are in nutra, Pharma, self help, since as you might imagine you’re dealing with a somewhat broken person to start.
But the people I know that are doing it have dedicated people managing it full time. It’s a ton of work and expensive but cheaper than buying ads
A lot of these products are in nutra, Pharma, self help, since as you might imagine you’re dealing with a somewhat broken person to start.
But the people I know that are doing it have dedicated people managing it full time. It’s a ton of work and expensive but cheaper than buying ads
111
lotsofmoney
Elite Member
- Aug 31, 2021
- 3,898
- 1,139
Paid forums need very good content , then only people will renew. You will have to pay contributors for this.