Forums Offer Opportunities

When trying to make money online, it's easy to start focusing just on sites that will pay you directly such as PTCs. While such sites offer a more or less straightforward way of making money online, there are often hidden opportunities to earn that only the more adventurous Web surfers will discover. You might expect a discussion forum to be more of a place to chat and share ideas than to make money, but forums are best thought of as online communities. Do you know of any real life communities where commerce isn't taking place in some form? Forums are no exception to that general rule.

Earn Money Space is a nice example of a forum bustling with commercial activity. On the surface, you might just notice a group of people talking about various aspects of making money online and chatting amongst themselves. The more you look around, though, the more opportunities you'll see. EMS even has a referral program -- this is nothing to get too excited about because only top referrers receive a cash prize due to their referring activities, but it is a moneymaking opportunity open to every EMS poster. In April 2010, the top referrer will receive a $50 prize and five other referrers will receive lesser cash prizes. Of course, only people who can refer a lot of members will win a prize. There is also a $10 weekly prize drawing open to users with 40 posts or more. For those of us neither lucky nor good at promoting, the Referral Deals, Downline Builder, and Referral Exchange sections may offer more promise. These subforums are all about helping users get referrals, but you can't simply spam your ref link and run away. The Referral Exchange is for, well...exchanges. You come to an agreement with other users to join your site in exchange for you joining theirs. For instance, you might pick up an Incentria referral as long as you agree to join myLot using your Incentria ref's referral link. As long as you both are active on your new sites, both of you will profit. The Downline Builder lets you pick up at least one referral in a particular site as long as you join that site under a previous poster. The Referral Deals section allows promoters to offer deals, often cash, to people in exchange for joining a site. So someone might offer pay you ten cents or more to join a site -- indeed, they might even offer pay you a little something every month as long as you remain active. There are also Buy & Sell and advertising subforums. Perhaps the easiest way to advertise of all is to include a link in your signature so it'll be seen on all your posts. The possibilities to make money here may not quite be endless, but they are many. As with any forum, you should be sure to familiarize yourself with the rules of the forums (and each subforum may have its own rules) before you post! After all, you can't make money if you lose your account.

It boggles the mind when one considers that Earn Money Space is just one forum. How many other forums are out there? Millions! Granted, not all will offer the same number of opportunities as EMS, a freewheeling GPT-oriented community -- many will outright discourage user attempts to make money. What ever the skills or interests you may have, though, there are forums relevant to you which will enable you to connect with similar minded folks. At worst, you'll just make some friends; at best, you'll make some friends and some money too. It's well worth spending a little time on...there's a whole world of opportunity out there online that people rarely seem to talk about!