14 Apr
As A Clan Leader: Keeping It Professional
Posted by JohnnyLocke as Articles, Clan Managment | 0 Comments
No one wants to join a clan run by a 13 year old. If you want to attract new mature members, you have to act that way yourself, so my advice to you is to keep it professional. I’m not saying to throw all personality traits aside and not be friendly with your members, just try to conduct yourself in a professional manner when the matter is serious.
Too many times I have seen nerdy 25 year olds running immature clans full of pre-teens, acting as if they were the same age as their members. Remember, the way you conduct yourself will more than likely determine the type of members you attract. When making a forum or news post on a serious subject, try to use correct grammar and spelling. Act leader-like. You have to let your members know that you are indeed the right man for the job.
When some official happens or changes, always make a forum and news post about it on your clan website. Keep your members informed on your clan’s ever-changing policies and decisions. When the topic at hand isn’t so serious it’s fine to joke around and show your members your personal side, a leader of any organization always needs to be level headed.
Try to explain to your members why you made the decision you did. Present them with the negative and positive of any decision and explain to them why you reached the conclusion you did. People like to have things spelled out for them, and this makes them more likely to see your perspective on any subject. Run your clan as if it were a small business. (Which it is, you should be able to generate enough money to pay for the clans essential costs such as webservers, gaming servers, and website maintanence.)
02 Apr
How to create revenue for your gaming clan
Posted by JohnnyLocke as Articles, Website Managment | 1 Comment
A Big problem alot of clans have (especially FPS clans who have to worry about server costs.) is coming up with enough money to support their clan. This can be a daunting task when you factor in all the probable costs of any serious clan. There’s web hosting fee’s, advertising, server fee’s, scripting fee’s, and any other web design fee’s a webmaster may come across that he himself can not deal with. Below are a few strategies that I personally have found effective.
Donations- If you are able to provide a fun, stable gaming enviorment for your members, there are usually at least 3-4 older members who don’t mind donating a small amount of money to help you out. Place a paypal button on your page with big, colored, boldened letters above it that say “DONATE.” Perhaps even ocaisionally make a forum post reminding everyone that donations do in fact go to the clan, and not into your pockets.
Make sure your clan members know what their donation is going towards. If they know their $15 are going toward website improvements or an expansion into a new game, they will probably be more likely to donate. I’ve spoken with many clan leaders that have paid for all of their clans fee’s with donations alone.
Adsense – Since Clans (usually) don’t draw huge amounts of unique visitors outside of the memberbase, Adsense usually doesn’t generate all that much money. However, it can’t hurt to have it. A few points about Adsense:
http://www.adsense.com
There are numerous other advertising agencies, but if for some reason Adsense is not suiting you (AKA you are banned from it 
), then I would suggest using http://www.adbrite.com
JohnnyLocke
