GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 13 - June 2010

BuildingaSuccessful OnlinePokerCommunity By Jeremy Enke B uildingasuccessful forumoronline community canbe one of themost challenging anddifficult things for an Internet marketer to accomplish. In thepoker affiliatemarket, it is evenmore difficult due to thenumber of established poker forums that are already successful. As Internet marketers continue to go so- cial, community building remains a hot topic. In this article I hope to share some tips and advice on the bestway to launch a successful poker community. With any forum or community, first impressions are critical. I strongly suggest investing some money in a good platform and launching with a nice design. When deciding to build a forum, youhave several softwareoptions to choose from. The five most popular forum software plat- forms currently on the market are vBulletin, phpBB, YaBB, IVB andSMF. Many webmasters may disagree, but inmy opinion, for operating a poker forum there is no better softwareout there thanvBulletin. One tremendous benefit of going with vBulletin is thatmanypoker players who post in forums are already familiar with the inter- face. Many of the largest poker forums in theworldarealreadyusing this platform. Launching with vBulletin will undoubtedly increase your sign-ups and activityamongnewmembers. Although a vBulletin license can cost you a couple hundred dollars per forum, it is worth every penny. Unlike much of the free forumsoftwareout there, vBulletin is extremely secure as long as youmaintain your updates. Additionally, vBulletin has hundreds of great plug-ins and add-ons thatwill allowyou to trulycustomizeyour community. The interface for yourmem- bers, moderators and administrators is by far themost user-friendly platformon themarket. Regardless of the forum software you choose, as apoker affiliateyoumust real- ize that launching an online poker forum will not create an immediate cash cow. This is actually a very common miscon- ception among many poker affiliates. Sure,youaregoing tobeginbuildingada- tabaseofpokerplayers, but you shouldn’t expect toprofit from thesemembersuntil severalmonths down the road. If there is one golden rule you remember from this article, it shouldbe this: Pokerplayersdo not sign up at forums with the intention to click on your banners and make you money; they sign up to become part of a community where they can interact with otherpokerplayers. This is one of the fundamental mistakes poker affiliatesmakewhen trying to start or growanonline forum. So how do you grow a forum or commu- nitywithin the online pokermarket? Be- lowarea fewpointers: Stand out & be different – If your poker forum is the same as the several hundred others on the Internet, what would really entice your traffic to sign up and post?My suggestionwould be to focus on some sort of niche in the poker affiliatemarket. Seedcontent –Visitorsarenot going to just show up and post of their own free will. As the admin of the forum you need to plant “seed content” that is either very interesting or even controversial. Give your traffic and randomWeb surfers a reason tosignupandpost inyour community. Rules &moderation – If you are starting a forum, treat it like a full-time job. Bring on great moderators who can help create seed content, reply to posts and welcome new guests. Most im- portantly though, as you begin to grow you have tomake sure that all spam is deleted in a timely fashion. Even one spam post can give a terrible first impression and cause people to immediately exit the site. MOPFI – This is an old-school sales principle, but it is very effective whengrowinga forum.MOPFI stands for MakeOtherPeopleFeel Important. Ifyou are running the forums, practiceMOPFI onaregularbasiswithyourmembersand staff.Whenyou recognizeyourmembers, you will be amazed at how quickly they develop loyalty toyour community. Start small & grow –Nothing ismore of a turnoff than arriving at a new poker forum and seeing 50-odd forums and flashing banners embedded there. Most “Regardlessoftheforum softwareyouchoose,asa poker affiliate youmust realizethatlaunchingan online poker forumwill notcreatean immediate cashcow.” 18 Building a Successful Online Poker Community