Should You Start a Forum or Message Board?
I’ve never been a total believer in the unwavering “value of the community.” Sure, there are lots of great things that can come from tapping into a group of people with similar interests. Building that feeling of community where ideas are shared, discussed and vetted for practical application can be valuable.
But I would submit to you that the broader the range of interests of the group, the less useful the input of the community becomes. An article in the New York Times, Ideas Online, Yes, but Some Not So Presidential by Saul Hansell depicts the situation perfectly. As a political science major in college, the idea of a United States of America message board sounds like a terrific idea for citizens to exchange ideas and discuss our government in a more transparent manner.
The result? Three of the top 10 most popular ideas called for legalizing marijuana, and two featured conspiracy theories about Mr. Obama’s true place of birth.
That’s because, unlike a vote where each person’s opinion of what’s best for the country is counted equally, in online message boards, forums and blog comments, whoever yells the loudest gets the most attention.
Before I go any further, let me first say that this post has nothing to do with politics, so don’t bother writing in the comments about whether you agree with me or not on that front.
What this post IS about is whether or not building a community will make it easier for you to sell memberships and content. Here’s the lesson: The more narrow your site’s focus, the more value you and your visitors will get from building a community. If your site’s content is broad, the effort to build a community quickly reaches the point of diminishing returns and is probably not worth your time.
Also something to keep in mind: the value of the community also increases as the level of anonymity decreases. Requiring your members to use their real name when posting may result in less posts, but the value of those posts and the resulting discussions will be exponentially more valuable to the community as a whole.
The Interview Income blog is written by Tim Bourquin and Emile Bourquin, brothers and owners of Ideas For Download. The Interview Income Blog is your front row seat to see what we've done that worked and failed in selling content online. Thankfully, we've been pretty successful but we promise to always show you the reality of building an online business.
