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The 10 Secrets to Web 2.0 Success:
How to Build Community
(Abridged
from article in
Pubexec.com)
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Here are the best practices used by the fastest-growing
community-driven sites to build traffic and engage users
based on our recent study. |
#1 Member Ratings |
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Enable visitors (or the posting member) to rate the quality
of a submission. Automatically tie those ratings back to a
summary list of top-scoring registrants. This
appeals to users’ ego and encourages more activity.
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#2: Event-Driven Emails. |
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Event-driven emails draw users back to the site based on
their own interest. Consider sending them a
notification any time an event happens related to their
recent posting. These can include when the user posts
a comment; when a comment or answer is posted; once a week
with cume points awarded; if it's picked by Editors to be
featured; and so on. Again, make this
email very action-oriented.
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#3: On-site & e-Newsletter Promotion |
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Feature the most notable and popular postings in lots of
places on your site, including pages outside of the forum;
in your routine email newsletter; and inside your print
publication. (Just be sure, when a visitor registers, to
include a provision that by registering they are providing
you with their permission to re-purpose their content.)
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#4: Editors Picks |
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Create official “Editor’s Pick” features, as this provides a
big ego boost to the recipient, as well as encouraging
word-of-mouth, and will expand their own usage and turn them
into evangelists for the forum.
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#5: Rewards for Submission |
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Offer a financial reward to those who provide answers and
tips which are selected by your editors to be published.
This also gives site members one more reason to visit.
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#6: Personal Profiles |
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A new trend in forums is to provide registrants with the
option to post their own profile containing more information
about them.
This enables registrants to click on a picture and/or link
to the profile of a member who posted their answer (or
question) and to contact them when they have something in
common.
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#7: Before You Launch .... |
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Got your functionality in place now? All ready to launch?
Great! Now … DON’T DO IT YET! Avoid the urge to start with a
big splash or you’ll soon feel the pain of a belly flop.
It’s best to set expectations and ensure that, when visitors
first go to the forum, they find something good there. Here
are some strategies and tactics to make that happen.
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#8: Sneak Preview Beta Test |
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Start with a “sneak preview, early-access” promotional
invitation to be a Beta tester. Send it to a subset of
opted-in email recipients from your email newsletter,
explaining that they are among a select few who are being
provided free access during the Beta phase in return for
their feedback.
Most importantly, get your editors to invite their own
contacts within the industry, and to also have editors post
their own questions and answers as members.
Using the phrase “Beta tester” in the invitation sets
visitors’ expectations for content quality and quantity.
Then you can gradually ramp up from there.
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#9: Category Management |
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Avoid creating a lot of categories until there is sufficient
posting volume. It’s better to arrive and find 20 threads in
a single main forum vs. two in each sub-section. Over time
you can create subcategories.
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#10: Appoint Forum Experts |
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This individual (or group of individuals) are committed in
advance to ensuring that postings receive answers, including
an answer from them if no-one else is posting. They can also
act as your advisory board and content evangelists.
Once the forum has been adequately populated and visitor
volume is adequate, however, their role can shift to that of
a content monitor vs. a content provider.
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How to Manage Inappropriate Content |
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First, you need to post some rules about forum conduct (such
as not promoting individual products or services, raging,
using derogatory or sexual language, etc.).
Then recognize that, while the Forum Experts can be “content
cops” to ensure content is appropriate, users will generally
do this more efficiently for you if you provide them with
the opportunity to do so.
A single Forum Expert can’t be everywhere at once – but
multiple users can be, and if the forum is an active
community, they’ll report it so your expert can investigate
it and remove it, warn the registrant who posted it, etc.
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Bill Baird is a leading authority on the use of digital
direct marketing tactics to generate revenue from publisher
content and services on the web. A frequent speaker at
tradeshows and conferences, his consulting clients include
EducationWeek, Vance Publishing, Consumerreports.org and
numerous others.
He is also the creator of SPARKwatch, a private industry
intelligence service which identifies emerging web marketing
best practices before they become widely known. He can be
reached at (203) 838-5444 or at http://www.bairddirect.com. |
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