Building Community Websites With Joomla - Case Study: My Puget Sound

Presented by: Christopher Nielsen

http://youtu.be/3-MpXwMimWg

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Part Four: Building Revenue Streams

For any community to be self-sustaining it will need to have some type of revenue stream(s). Even volunteer based communities require funding to keep relevance and growth. There are always tradeoffs with how to approach this since visitors do not want to be blasted with more ads than content and advertisers want to have the best possible exposure. With the same token not everyone that adds value to your community is willing to pay to be a member. Picking the right model and strategy can significantly affect your success or failure.

• How do I plan to build my membership model and how does it fit with my base user?   
• How much would members be willing to pay for each tier of benefits?   
• Where would I place advertising or sponsorship?   
• Are there limitations on or conflicts with certain types of advertisers?   
• How will I manage the transactions?   
• What disclosures or legal disclaimers are required?
• Will I have affiliate, partner or reseller programs?   
• Where does my community add value to an advertiser?

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Part Three: Marketing, Audience and Incentives

Connecting with the right people or networks

When you consider building a community site with Joomla CMS  or any other technology for that matter, you have to make sure you understand what social or professional need you are filling and where your members will be coming from.  What are the average or common demographic profile elements? You will need to make sure your community “type” or “model” is right for the audience that you want to serve and that you configure your tools and presentation accordingly.

• Is the group or industry mostly male or female, younger or older and what special interests do they all have in common?    
• What will be the glue that holds them together in a community and attracts new members to join?
• How will you capture and keep their attention?
• What information will you need to push to them or gather from them?
• What key benefits make your community save them time, money or frustration, or give them a sense of pride to participate in?

Once you have a clear demographic profile of your intended community you will be able to create incentive programs and key selling propositions for marketing your community to the world, even if this world is a small niche market or private membership for an organization. 

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Photos add visual interest to your website. Most visitors will look at the pictures to determine the content before they read even one word. Sites like Pinterest and Flickr have made images even more important since they are increasingly easy to share.

If you have multiple images, a photo gallery presents your photos in a user friendly manner, allowing your visitor to browse through at their leisure. It's also easier on the website administrator's side, as uploading and resizing are batched.

Note: All are compatible with Joomla 1.5, 1.7, and 2.5

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Managing custom programming and integrations for Joomla! CMS

At CNP Integrations the Joomla! CMS is our company’s core focus and key area of expertise. The central power of this open source platform for content management and client solutions is the diverse collection of over 9000 extensions and the vibrant support from a global development community. Joomla is the most popular CMS system in Europe and the second most popular in the US with 2.8% of all web portals in the world using Joomla! CMS. Considering that 70% of the web is still using static web pages, the current trend suggests that dynamic web sites which leverage Joomla! CMS will only grow in popularity. As this need in the marketplace grows for dynamic web portals there too will be a greater need for administrators to adopt effective software management practices if they want to remain cost effective and competitive.  To manage the associated costs or extensibility requirements for maintenance on any dynamic portal you need a solid version control, change logging and data backup strategy.

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