photo credit:
HikingArtist.com

Forums are great. Forums can develop into great communities. They can generate a lot of traffic from search engines. Traffic can equal money. This is not a secret.

What this means, though, is that people will try to take advantage of “forums” in order to generate poor quality websites that they hope will rank well in search engines, which will lead to traffic and, yes, money. And so, we have Auto Forum Poster (no follow).

Recently, I received an e-mail from someone, introducing this product to me as a means of automatically generating content on a phpBB forum. They were interested in buying advertising from me on phpBBHacks.com and also mentioned that they had an affiliate program offering 50% commissions for each sale. The basic product costs $47, while there is an “up-sell” that could take that up to $97 and, he said, 33% of people take the up-sell.

Lanyrd launched in September. I love Lanyrd. What is Lanyrd? It’s “the social conference directory.” That’s probably not enough. Lanyrd aims to help you “find great conferences to attend,” “to discover what’s hot while it’s on” and to “catch up on anything you missed.”

It’s built on top of Twitter (in so much as you need to share your Twitter details to unlock it’s true power) and it shows you what conferences the people you follow are attending, speaking at or talking about. As you may know, I speak a bit. Here’s my profile on Lanyrd.

Social engagement firm ComBlu has just released “The State of Online Branded Communities,” a new 52-page report that you can download for free on their website.

It includes data from 241 online communities collectively owned by 78 corporations, and the bulk of the report discusses what tools they use and what “best practices” they follow. This data is then drilled down to specific industries and corporations are given a rating based on how well they are supposedly engaging through their online communities.

Overall, ComBlu did a great job collecting and compiling this data and offering it to us to consume – and for free. They certainly could have charged for the report and I would have never seen it unless they sent me a copy, so the fact that they are providing it free of charge makes it a must-download for anyone in the community space.

photo credit: jurvetson

Allow me to get on my Kanye West for a second. I’m a soldier of culture. In online communities. I believe that, to create a really beneficial, unique online community, what you win at – more than anything – is culture.

One thing I hear people say with some regularity is “I’ll never be the largest community in my niche” or “There is this well established community in the space I want to enter – I’ll never catch them!” or “I’ve put in so much time, but we’re still not as active as XYZ!”

photo credit: bochalla

If you’re reading this site, chances are that you know that I do something with online communities. You might know that I’ve been managing online communities for 10 years and that I wrote a book about it. In short, online community is a passion for me.

But, long before I managed any online communities, I was a Nintendo Power subscriber. I don’t remember exactly how long I subscribed, but it was something like volume 20 through 80, which according to The Video Game Museum, would take us from January 1991 (when I was 7) through January 1996.

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of appearing on David Garland’s awesome web video show for entrepreneurs, The Rise To The Top. We chatted about my background, the power of online community and how to pick a niche and be successful. We also talked about how I built my brand and how I market my sites without a marketing budget.

I thought I would share it here as we definitely talked about some subjects related to this website. You can watch the video below and he also has an audio only version available on his website. A big thank you to David for having me.

You do not have any right to fans of a Facebook page that is dedicated to you or your product, that was created by someone who is not you or acting on your behalf.

There have been cases where companies have tried to seize control of unofficial fan pages and take them over, as if they were somehow entitled to the community that was built by someone else. It’s so wrong.

Some are trying to use trademark or copyright law as a means of bullying their way into these pages and, in doing so, they risk damaging those fan relationships. In fact, the bullying itself is rather hard to understand because in many cases, they are essentially treating their customers like thieves. Completely the wrong move.

I was a member of staff on the SitePoint Forums for many years (from July 15, 2001 through September 30, 2008, to be exact) and I now co-host the SitePoint Podcast. SitePoint is one of the largest web development communities in the world and I am proud of my affiliation with it.

SitePoint is an example I cite with some regularity as they are an interesting blueprint to follow when it comes to leveraging the power of community for bigger things and revenue opportunities beyond just the normal stuff.

photo credit: corinnamakris

This is the third and final part in my series on building community around your blog. In part one, we discussed the community you have by default and, in part two, we touched on community building outside of your own site. Finally, we’re going to bring it home and discuss the growth of community on your own website, your own domain and your own hosting.

As powerful as it can be to grow community outside of your site, growing community on your own site, in an area where you have full control, can help you to unlock the power of community.

photo credit: gotosira

For part two in my series on building community around your blog, I want to talk about community decentralized – or community that is built on websites that you do not own or control. In the first part, we discussed community that you have by default upon launching your blog.

This relates directly to what Chris Brogan wrote about outposts. In short, Chris spoke about building community through his “outposts” that he maintains at sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and more. Sites that he doesn’t control. The idea is to offer value at thess sites, but the end game is to bring people back to the home base. In this case, his blog. This is a great way to look at it.