Will I Make Money By Starting a Forum?
When you’re considering various online business ideas, launching a forum can seem like a good option. For one, after you get the forum up and running and create topics for discussion, the other users post all the content, not you! But is starting your very own forum a good idea to make money?
Should I Launch a Forum?
Although a forum can be a good idea, there are several significant challenges you should consider before creating one. First, be sure to avoid the pitfall made by many webmasters who devote the majority of their energy into designing and customizing an attractive theme or selecting the perfect forum script.
No matter how nice the site might look, without a critical mass of users their forum will go nowhere.
Most people looking to strike it big with a forum will not have the budget to run a real advertising campaign, so you absolutely must have some previously established community if you are to have success.
In most cases, a niche forum focused on a specific topic will have a better chance of attracting users than one about every topic under the sun. If you have already have a blog with many regular subscribers, a popular Youtube channel, an email list, or even an established presence in a Facebook, LinkedIn or Google group, you’ll have a much better chance than if you just try to build your forum from scratch.
You should ideally do a lot of work to build up a community of users who will contribute to your forum before choosing a forum script or buying your domain. If possible, try to get a few people who can serve as moderators or can at least have a small group of users who can participate in a pre-launch in order to get some discussions started.
What you absolutely want to avoid is to promote your forum and attract some people only to have them greeted by a ghost town when they hit your site. Make sure there is a good volume of active topics before launching because no one is going to want to be the first to post. Negative social proof is a killer on any site but with a forum, a lack of discussions is unacceptable and will quickly spell your demise.
Another factor working against you is the fact that discussions once served by forums are now occurring in other areas of the web, such as Facebook communities, Twitter, and sites like Quora. It has become much more difficult to lure users away from these platforms because they already spend so much of their time there.
Conclusion:
But even taking all of that into account, creating an online forum is not a bad idea if you are able to do some research to decide on an appropriate niche, earn a following, and create something unique that isn’t already being served by other online fora.
If you’ve created your own forum online, how did it turn out? Do you recommend it?
January 14, 2016 @ 12:08 pm
Ah, forums….. such a tricky subject.
We all see big forums populated with great topics and loyal followers. As you said, though, many people don’t realize that launching it is one of the toughest things when it comes to making money online.
Sadly, many webmasters opt to questionable (but perhaps necessary) tactics such as posting themselves with several usernames or using paid services to compensate users a few pennies per post.
Do you consider the above a necessary evil?
That’s why it’s so important to have some kind of following to begin with, so maybe he or she can avoid all of the above. Thankfully most people have more connections than they realize, with their Facebook friends being just one of several sources.
Thanks for this interesting topic!
Elvis
March 22, 2016 @ 3:49 pm
Appreciate your perspective. Was unclear about the value of forums, other than for those participating and sharing expertise. Enjoyed the article 🙂
March 28, 2016 @ 11:51 am
Hi Andrew,
Just like you pointed out, forums could be quite difficult to start up, getting people to visit the forum at the initial stage is always a herculean task, this is why most webmasters at this stage result in paying people to post on their forum just to keep discussion going, but like you pointed out in the article, things would be much easier if you have a large following or belong to a strong community where you can easily promote your forum.
One good thing about forums is that once the traffic start coming, you don’t have to worry about content because content will be generated by users. I believe with hard work, one can earn consistently from a forum. The most important thing in starting a forum is having a very good strategy to promote the forum, that’s the most difficult hurdle to cross, if you can overcome it then you are good to go.
Thanks for sharing this info.
March 29, 2016 @ 8:50 pm
A few years ago, Amazon launched a fan-fiction program called Kindle Worlds. I registered a domain name and started a forum based on that. A few people had signed up, but I just didn’t have the time for it (as I quickly realized).
For anyone that does have the time, starting a blog is something that I highly recommend as long as you can remain consistent, especially at the beginning.
April 29, 2016 @ 11:08 pm
I have been thinking of starting a forum before I saw this article online, If you don’t have a good marketing strategy you better don’t start until you have a good one
July 14, 2016 @ 9:09 pm
Hey, Andrew Walsh!
How are you doing today…! I knew you’re doing great..! 😛
It was a nice tips to discuss making money with forums discussion. Well, I agree with you. Forum is a great idea to make money unless you have a great networking or big brand community. Sure, you have a big plan before running your forum community. I love what you said, to find some group of users who can provide pre-discussion.