GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 13 - June 2010

of the time these forumseitherhavenever been posted in, or haven’t been posted in formonths. Start small and keep all your members’ posts confined to a small area. Motion creates emotion! Whenmembers and visitors see activity in a few forums, they will be much more likely to get in- volved. Having too many forums and categories is extremely overwhelming for newmembers.Keep it simple. Another important aspect of running a forum is that someone with a strong per- sonalityhas to takeon the leadership role. Whether it isyou, amoderator, oryouand a fewmoderators, somebody has to take on the position of leadership and direc- tion in thecommunity.The leaderor lead- ers need to be active and posting every single day. Strong leadership and having the leaders active are key ingredients for growinga successful community. Once you establish a leadership role with yourmembers, you canbegin tomonetize thecommunity.Theway tomonetizeyour forum members is NOT simply getting them to click on random links and ban- ners. It is by engaging thesemembers by hosting tournaments, poker leagues and special promotions. Anotherway tomon- etize your members is by offering some sort of incentive such as rakeback, rake racesor a special deposit bonus. There are two other important points that are essentialwhenbuildinganonline community. 1. Compelling content is king – Ini- tially when starting a forum, you have to give people a reason to sign up and post. Between you and yourmoderators, make sure that the posts and content in your forum are not the same old boring hand histories.Alsomakesure that the forum is always active. If thatmeans you and your moderators have toparticipate in conver- sationswitheachother all day, thenbyall means do it. One thing I do not suggest, however, isutilizing “payperpost” servic- es toget your forumactive. These services seldom result ingood content andwill ac- tuallydevalueyour community. 2. Forum banner blindness – There is a reasonwhymany social networks and online communities such as Facebook have a hard timemaking a profit. Unlike mini-siteswhereyourgoal is toattractvis- itorsandencourage them to leave through your links, communities your goal is to get your visitors to act and to spend time on your site. Because of this, monetizing poker affiliate forums is more difficult thanmostwould suspect. Thinkabout the online communities or social networks youvisitdaily.Youprobablygo there tobe social, read threads, send PMs and catch upwithothers in the community, andnot to immediately click on affiliate links and leave. Think about this:Whenwas the last time you clicked an ad at Facebook, MySpace or even your favorite forum? Probably never. Poker affiliates must realize that banners and text links are not the road to richeswhen runninga forum. In order to profit with an online commu- nity, you have to be willing to think out- side theboxa littlebitand leverage the re- lationships youhave developedwith your members. Relationships are key when it comes to converting these members to profits. The bottom line is unless you are willing to form relationships with hun- dreds of forummembers, you will make moremoney runninganonlineportal that rankswell in the searchengines. Gauging the success of an online com- munity can be difficult, especially when starting out. Just because your forum isn’t profitable doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t successful. Building a successful community is a marathon, not a sprint. One way that I have always measured success in online communities is when I see members getting to personally know other members. If your members are be- coming friends, sharing PMs or speaking offline, then you know youhave created a community that has loads of potential for years to come. Building a successful online poker com- munity takes a lot of patience and hard work. However, once you have accom- plishedthis, thefruitsofyour laborandthe friendships youmake can last throughout your entirepoker affiliate career. Jermy Enke Jeremy Enke is theCEO of Poker Affliate Listings (PokerAffiliateListings.com). Jeremy has dedicatedover six years to thepoker affiliate market,with anoverallmission throughout this timeof helping affiliatemarketers reach their full potential andbecomemore successful in this terrific industry. Jeremy has been involved in the poker affiliate industry since 2003. Founding theworld’s largest poker affiliate community, followedby theworld’s largest poker affiliatenetwork, Jeremy likes to refer tohimself as a self-proclaimedCertifiedBaller. Jeremy’s senseof humor and entrepreneurial spirit are second tonone. 19 Building a Successful Online Poker Community