Just learned about a report by the Online Community Research Network entitled Online Community ROI and Revenue Techniques. Key findings reinforce what we already know: advertising and subscriptions are the main revenue models for content-based sites.
The full report is available for download. It’s worth giving them your email. The results are based on 51 completed surveys, the report date is October 2007 and it’s 27 pages long.
Here’s the table of contents:
- Community-based Revenue: percentage of revenue attributable to community activities
- Community Activities: a list of community-building and engagement activities
- Dimensions of Value : a ranked list of dimensions of community value
- For-Fee Activities: a list of community activities that hosts are charging for
- Revenue Generating Strategies: a list of effective strategies for generating revenue
- Advice on Revenue: advice on how to introduce revenue-generating activities
Comments Worth Noting:
- Charge for access to experts
- Provide super-premium levels (a “big upsell jump”) to allow people to express loyalty (with practically the same services)
- Offer Identity creation, which can be “a powerful motivator to which money is a means, not a barrier.”
- Add incentives for users to create the kind of content that sponsors want to sponsor
- Create a strong community first, then monetize
Who’s Behind the Report?
The Online Community Research Network is “a collaborative effort of online community professionals to better understand the principal challenges of building and managing online communities. The Research Network coordinates the collection, analysis and dissemination of useful information among online community professionals.”
See all 18 Posts in This Series
How to Create a Social Networking Website Series has 18 posts on various aspects of this topic.
See also this page of related posts on social network business models.
