Making money with a forum

jefis

jefis

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I can't seem to find any articles about real-life samples of small / medium forums that are making money.

Does anyone have any experience in this field?
Does anyone here own a forum, and how much are you making? How large is the community? What are the monetization techniques that you use on the forum?

If you have any articles about the subject, drop them in the thread!
 
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I used to think of this ideal come out a Forum Talk about Aliens, Life, even Politics
yes Politics forum always can easily gain traffic whenever Election is coming even come normal days, people will still debate like policy , etc stuffs

But i skip partly kinda a lot of things to manage?

first is the hosting must be really dam BIG able to cope
than moderators, I do know so call " volutenner but I don't know how the admin choose " or how the admin get mods to look after any trolls etc troublemarker trying to disturb the forum etc stuffs

summary Is on technical part and maintenance .

A popular forum can easily no doubt earn from ads , even can earn from sponsor ads

etc stuffs , look at BHW here :oops:

but again is on marketing etc , I have witness some forum just new like one year next year gone etc quite a lot

so getting people register , make them daily comment etc also a thing to consider, the members are the Source without them daily come in , the forum will be like a ghost town.
 
I dont think its a good idea to start a forum these days. Ppl use social media and reddit now.

Most Forums are not earning anything. Mostly financed by the owners just to have a place to talk like back in the days.

I know there is bhw. But, BHW is a special forum, you should never compare to. Its awesome and its unique and old.
 
Get some ideas from this forum, such as a yearly subscription to unlock all the features or a one-time fee to download premium contents available in the forum. If the forum has lots of members than you can also charge a selling fee in the forum etc
 
Blue Panda said:
I dont think its a good idea to start a forum these days. Ppl use social media and reddit now.

Most Forums are not earning anything. Mostly financed by the owners just to have a place to talk like back in the days.

I know there is bhw. But, BHW is a special forum, you should never compare to. Its awesome and its unique and old.
Click to expand...

that is true, but one thing I noticed those forum which still survive is integrated with website not just mainly a forum like BHW.

for an example u see those establish IT website or handphone review website, there is also a forum to let people discussion the phone they own , review , comment like that

just like macrumors.
 
Just look at what bhw does.

Paid membership for benefits, selling ads, partnering with brands etc.
 
Sure thats a thing. Same does steam with the Community-Hub.

But i would not suggest a Integration to a website if you do not have huge traffic. People hate empty Forums.
 
I actually do own a forum I built myself (learned some XF coding etc), but a) it's on life support because I all but abandoned it, and b) I don't ever talk about it because of the rules here and not wanting anyone that runs BHW to think I'm trying to fuck around with any shenanigans.

I'm not planning on putting any effort into it again, probably will just sell the domain at some point because it's a good name and decent metrics... but I found it to be too fucking hard honestly. Getting critical mass on a forum is so difficult, I tip my hat to anyone that's been able to successfully do it.

I tried for months, pivoted the community twice, built a bunch of custom shit into it.. by the end I was happy to wash my hands of it and move on.

My advice would be don't do it - it vacuumed up more than 1.5 yrs of my life, and while you can make really great money from a bunch of different revenue streams with forums, there's infinitely easier ways to make money.
 
Why? these techniques work regardless of the size of the forum.
 
Blue Panda said:
I dont think so.
The huge amount of information and users is the reason why it works here.
Click to expand...

No, If he has some premium info or a marketplace, he could sell subscriptions, maybe not for $97 like bhw. He could partner with hosting brands for affiliate commission etc.
 
thescrrr said:
Why? these techniques work regardless of the size of the forum.
Click to expand...
The main thing that matters with a forum is whether you can get it to the point of growth that it self-sustains itself. This is hugely dependant on the uniqueness of the offering you provide. If people can get the same or better elsewhere or even anything close then don't waste a minute on it.

BHW kills it because of the uniqueness of the value proposition, and the blend of various forms of value. It's why if everything was focused on SEO only (removing lounge) it would have a huge impact (negative). The culture here is incredibly valuable to members too, as is the unique combination of topics available here that work in with each other seamlessly.

Imho, without critical mass, monetisation shouldn't even be attempted at all. There shouldn't be any reason for people to not want to join and keep coming back - all monetisation in some way takes something from users, so it has to be 100% growth, then monetisation.
 
never understood why there is no escrow service on bhw... guys here let a big check pass imo
 
BHW is the ultimate model to learn from. as a long-time member you probably understand the business model but I am not sure if you will be able to find dedicated amazing mods like BHW does.
 
I used to own small forum but didn't know affiliate back then.
The hardest part at first is to get someone to post on your forum.
I did it by adding more and more discussions (yes it's me talking to myself) and around 30-50 topics or so my first real user came in.
Need to add discussions every single day or else any body that comes in will think the forum is inactive.
The next hardest thing, I think, is managing/applying rules to your users.
I dropped it when I have around 50 active users. Just too boring for me back then.
 
Creating multiple accounts through scripting and making them post a pre-defined helpful content could be a good way to show users that quality content is in your forum. Need to do it until it gains the critical mass of user generated content to run on its own.
 
I once got a request from a forum owner who was desperately posting on his rival forum to attract users, and that’s when I realised it’s difficult if not impossible to beat existing forums. Your primary earning are ads, then any subscription based thing or levels but you need to build something big. Instead of this why not wait till Christmas as DD is giving us shares of BHW and some spare btc too since his wallet is flooding with it :D
 
Only example that forum admin can earn good massive profits that is BHW. Follow the admin.
 
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