Whats The Difference Between A Blog And A Forum?

To all of you internet guru’s out there that know everything about the internet, this question really does come up. Not everyone knows the difference, and occasionally I get approached with this question. Not only will I list the differences, but I will also show you the pro’s of each one for those of you that are looking to start one or the other.

A Blog:

Short for “Web Log”. Is like a journal or diary that people use to share their incites, experiences and pictures. Blogs are usually listed in a dated format like journal entries. The only interaction the reader gets is to reply to a “post”(entry) with a comment and maybe voting on the occasional poll.

Pros:

1. Unlike a forum, you can control the content of your site easier. With a forum, spammers, trolls and angry members can wreak havoc on your site while your not around.
2. As an admin you dont have to worry about a revolt if you are gone a day or two
3. Easier to find the information you are looking for. Rather than searching thousands of threads and posts you should be able to get to what you want fairly quickly with a blog.

A Forum:

Is usually centered around a theme like, cars, trucks, parenting, etc… Unlike a blog, anyone registered on a forum can start a new thread or topic and have anyone reply. Forums have the potential to be much more interactive than blogs since anyone can start rambling at any second.

Pros:

1. Users are constantly generating new content, asking questions and answering them rather than the admin having to come up with new material.
2. Forums have potential to grow faster. Because the users can become so involved in the growth of the site there is a tendency to get more links and traffic.

Conclusion:

Both have their purpose and sometimes both are used on the same site. If you have limited time and just want to write, you should start a blog. If you love talking to thousands of people and have plenty of time, start a forum. If you have no time whatsoever, then dont do anything at all. Ever.

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The Extensive Guide To Monetizing A Forum

Posted May 22, 2008

We already covered the basics of starting a forum a few days ago in this post: The Extensive Guide to Starting a Successful Forum. Today I am going to give you advice on how to properly monetize and generate revenue from your forum. Most forums require a lot of traffic to generate a decent revenue and that is why it is good to have multiple means of advertising and monetization on the site.

If you are a forum user rather than a forum owner and think it is terrible that any forum owner would try to make money on his forum then go take a hike. More than likely a forum owner is not getting rich off of his ads. However, it pays for the cost running the site and for his time. There is a lot of time involved in running a forum and expenses that forum members never think about. Ok, now that I got that out of my system…

Revenue #1: Premium Memberships

For a small “donation” offer members “Premium Member” status giving them a cool new title w/cool graphic, more access to the site, and maybe less ads. I always liked to give stickers to my Premium Members. I like the idea of giving members something tangible, plus it can increase sales. The only problem is that you need to raise the “Premium Member” price to cover your time, cost of the stickers, envelopes, stamps, ink, etc. Be sure to include a form letter thanking them for their contribution to the site. If done right, you can make more money than not sending stickers, but sending stickers is definitely not an automated system.

Revenue #2: Adsense

This is probably the most obvious of all revenue streams. Google Adsense is everywhere and on almost every forum. When implementing Google Adsense I usually show the most ads to non-registered members, less ads to registered members and very minimal ads, if any to my Premium Members. This encourages people to register and then also to become Premium Members.

If you are familiar enough with your forum system, you can implement your own ads. If you are running vBulletin like I told you to in the last post, then there is extensive Plugins and Template Modifications to help you implement Adsense. Go to vBulletin.org type in “adsense” into the search box(make sure to select that you are searching for mods, and search titles) and you will come up with tons of stuff to help you. You can even find a script that will turn off individual ads for different usergroups.

Revenue #3 Vendors/Advertisers

Depending on the topic of your forum and its purpose it should not be too hard to get retailers w/online stores to become interested paying you to advertise. This has its plus’s and minus’s.

- Good Part: Nice big checks at one time(depending on monthly, quarterly or yearly billing)

- Bad Part: Some advertisers can be high maintenance. When advertisers pay to advertise themselves on a site, it becomes hard for some of them not to spam threads with information on their product. If an advertiser feels that he has to chip in and let people know about his product on every thread, this can turn away the members. Remember, the Members are your biggest customer. You will never make everyone happy, but you should make decisions that make MOST of your forum happy.

Things to offer vendors:

1. Rotating Banners
2. Their own forum in a “Vendors” Category
3. Advertising in their Signature space
4. First chance at sponsoring forum competitions

Revenue #4 Merchandise

I was never able to make any money with merchandise and it usually took more time than I ever had. If you can do it, great. If you are like me and dont have time, CafePress.com is a good way to go. Spend an evening uploading your logo to a few t-shirts and baseball caps. Dont expect to pay your mortgage with this revenue though.

Revenue #5 eBay

Yeah, thats right, eBay. Now I know what your thinking…”I just got started monetizing my forum and now you want me to auction it off on eBay?!” Not at all! Here is the thing, in every forum, eBay is bound to come up. Wether your forum is all about knitting, cars, coffee, kittens, dinosaurs, or Chinese Apple Fungus, there is something on eBay that will be interesting to them and someone will eventually bring it up in a discussion. There are 2 things that are REALLY cool about this:

1. eBay has an affiliate program which means that when you promote eBay through links and banners, you make a commission when people follow those links and purchase something from eBay.
2. vBulletin.org has a custom plugin for eBay that makes it so that EVERY link mentioned in any thread on your forum includes your affiliate ID so that you dont have to add any links yourself.

What this means is whenever anyone is talking about and posting links to Chinese Apple Fungus, cars, or donkeys on eBay, you make commission if one of those people purchase that item. Whats even better is once that “cookie” has been set from them following your link, you make commissions on all of their purchases from that link in 30 days of them clicking. Which means that they can go to eBay later and buy something that is totally unrelated like underwear, or moldy sandwiches and you will still get a commission.

Like I said, eBay is a great way to monetize a forum.

Conclusion…

These are a handful of great ways to monetize a forum. There are other great ways I’m sure that I will bring up in the future. For now, have fun and try these out. I will add to this post as I come up with new information.