How to Monetize your UNA Website

One of the (many) wonderful things of my job, is that I am constantly communicating with Social Media Entrepreneurs (you guys!) -  discussing strategy and vision for creating the Next Big Social Start-Up. 🚀
It is often interesting in my conversation with fellow UNA-Preneurs - many of whom are intrepid business builders ⚒ - developing communities upon the UNA Community Management System, how quickly the conversation and focus turns from Community Development to Monetisation.🤑

Don't get me wrong, I love money, monetization of any business is a paramount function that should not be ignored. However, I often find myself steering the conversation back towards community development and expansion, which in my opinion should take precedent over the monetization efforts, to begin with.

My recommendation for most Social Community Developers is to have monetization efforts in your strategy from day dot - but don't obsess over it.

As a Community Manager - it is your job to inspire growth, interaction and engagement. Build value in your website, and cultivate a passionate community seeking to connect with that value and the money will surely follow.

I've spent a lot of time in the Blog-O-Sphere, the world of building enticing cookie content, sales funnels and metric conversions. Leveraging big Unique Visitor Traffic with Google Ads and the slippery slope of trying to convert your Blog readers to email subscribers.

With a Social Community, you have the potential for something different - a passionate community who are coming together on your site, to share resources, ideas, information, inspiration. 

Here are 6 Ways that you can Monetise your Social Community Site.

1. Premium Memberships. 
Using the UNA Paid Levels App and the Permissions App - it is a simple business to create Premium Memberships that have expanded permissions and capabilities within your site. Pages and Groups for Premium Members, or the ability to create more posts, likes or comments - essentially the ability to do more and see more - are easy to setup and manage using these modules. Creating Premium Content and abilities for a small & recurring fee is a great way to monetise your UNA Website.

2. Sell Something! 
The UNA Market App, Snipcart and Shopify Integration give you the power to turn your UNA Community into a 24/7 digital store. Selling digital content, services or hard goods to your community members is a great way to provide value and make profit. Find out what products and/or services that your site members are interested - and sell them, it really is that simple.

Perhaps if your products are unique enough - you will be able to build a community around those products (think UNA.IO) or perhaps it is the other way, you build the community around the interest, and seek something that those people want to buy. You are the boss - the choice is yours.

2. Google Adsense
Not the best ROI - but an easy quick start solution, especially if you have a site with high visitation. Easy to setup just by pasting code into a custom block anywhere on your UNA site.

3. Banner Ads Module
Be your own Google! Selling our own Ads means we don't pay the middle man... You can take at the Banner Ads Module look on the UNA Market here.

4. Promoted Posts
UNA has a Promote Posts feature connected to the Timeline Module - enabling you to push selected posts across all feeds. It is possible to connect this action to a Premium Membership, with a restricted number of actions available to each user. This is more of a workaround, but if would get the results - I'd love to see a more sophisticated advertising module - enable admins to sell this ability through a console. I'm confident that we will see this feature developed soon.

5. Classifieds / Ads Module
Setting up classifieds pages is a great way to turn your UNA site into a trading hub. UNA has recently released a powerful Ads Module, which could be potentially customised into Classifieds Pages, Jobs board or similar. Check out & Download the Ads Module here.

6. Make UNA an Extension of your Existing Business.
The essence of any money making venture is providing value. Building a Social Community Space that is an extension of your existing business model, brings value to your business and is an indirect way of monetising your UNA powered website. By providing your customer a place to connect and interact, engage with your messages and with each other, you are creating a customer community and stimulating repeat business.

Maybe you are an education provider who gives a place for students 👩🏽‍🎓 to learn and interact, or a retailer create a social hub to discuss your products connected to your online store, a hardware business with a social community for DIY enthusiasts... the ideas are limitless.

Cultivate Community, Create Engagement, Reap the Rewards

If you build the community 🏗, the money will come 💸. Before focussing upon getting rich, put your efforts toward building a core membership who are passionate about your Community. Remember that when Facebook started, they waited years, until they had a membership of mega-millions before they began to actively monetise their platform.  
Many monetisation efforts, such as intrusive advertising and paywalls, serve as a blockage to growth.  My advice is usually to focus first upon making your product vital, indispensable, engaging and easy to use.

Don't ignore monetisation efforts, have them clearly in your long term strategy but don't let them distract you from your core focus - which should be about building community.

Any Other Ideas❓
Do you have any further suggestions on how to turn your UNA Social Community into a Money Tree? Please share them in the comments, we would love to know more!

So what are you waiting for? The best way to build an empire is to start with a single click - if you haven't already - launch your UNA Site NOW.