forum con - raymond lyle - developing and monetizing forums and communities
DESCRIPTION
Raymond Lyle has developed large and successful forums and worked both the media and advertising sides within communities. This discussion will help publishers grow and develop their communities and drive user-generated content that brings value to both users and advertisers. Ray will also share his expertise on using forums and communities to drive traffic and make sales. Raymond joined VigLink via Driving Revenue, which he co-founded served as CEO. Raymond joined VigLink via Viglink’s acquisition of Driving Revenue, which he co-founded and led as CEO. Prior to Driving Revenue, Raymond spent 5 years at Leapfrog Online (the 11th largest interactive marketing firm – Adage), where his efforts propelled them to be the 6th largest SEM firm in the country.TRANSCRIPT
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Developing and monetizing
forums and communities.
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“The Web's top hangout for lonely folk” History of Forums
Forums have been around forever and
ever –
Before Chat
Before Social Media
Before Blogs
Before Twitter
Before The Dinosaurs
Earliest forums dated back to 1994 - AVS
Since 1995!2
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Easier Said then DoneGrowing a site from scratch
• Topic
• Pick a topic that you love/have expertise
• Friends
• Recruit all of your friends to help
• Momentum
• The hardest part is lift off!
• Content
• The most important thing forums have to
offer is content – the more the better!
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Why have forums not evolved/become
mainstream?
• The overall design is still very antiquated
• Mostly started for passion and not for
business
• Not sexy
• Never covered in media/no mainstream
appeal
• Big Business not behind it
• Known as a place for us nerds to gather
• Other distractions – Facebook, twitter, blogs
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5L
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L4P.com – Growing a site from
ScratchOur Story – A combination of Design,
Branding, Events and Brand ambassadors
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Hype/Branding/L4P.com
In the hypercompetitive world of
Automotive based forums we had to come
out of the gate strong!
- we put our money and resources where
our mouth was..
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Branding - Luxury4play.com
• We went out and purchased a 3 digit domain
L4P.com – almost unheard of in the forum
space
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Brand recognition aka
“repping”Giving your community the sense of belonging,
exclusivity and ownership.
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Repping/Branding Takes off!
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Merchandise
Members started to buy any and all merchandise with
our Logo on it!
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Members taking it a little too far…
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EEEK!
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Custom Made Avatars – huge
hit!
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Events – show your face!
Started a cross country car rally – Goldrush~
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Forums 2.0
• Google gets smarter – forums continue to index better• Google starts to clamp down on indexing content farms and
start to reward real content
• Much prettier• Forums are starting to look more modern
• Technologies• Dedicated advertising technologies made specifically for forum
content• TapaTalk
• Postrealease
• VigLink
• vBseo
• vBulletin
• Taken more seriously – IB, VS, CG
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Making money with your
forum• Most common issues on existing forums
- People expect it for free???
• Ease in to monetizing your forum
• Least aggressive –> Most aggressive
• Get the support of your inner team,
then your community
• Explain the costs and reasoning
• Give back – events, giveaways,
donations16
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Getting the last drip of Juice from your
Orange• AdSense• The main staple of making money online with any website
• Sponsorships• The original way for forums to survive
• Are you selling your yearly space too cheap?
• Can you sell on a CPM?
• Increase price every year/with increased traffic
• Don’t give the farm away for free!
• New technologies – try them out – they work• Postrelease
• Viglink
• In text player –Konetra, Vibrant
• Data reselling• Rapleaf, Chango, Blue Kai
• Tapatalk
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