Are you adding social media or social networking features to your website? Or you already did, but the traffic just isn't happening?
If so, you need to know that traffic from user-generated content doesn’t happen on its own (especially at the start). You’ll need to build in specific processes to ensure the content quantity, quality and timeliness. And you’ll also need to use some simple direct marketing tactics to motivate them to participate.
These should be part of a thoughtful, integrated plan across multiple disciplines, including IT functionality, editor participation, and email marketing. Here are some of the strategies you need to include. (NOTE: for the sake of brevity, I’ll use a forum as an example, but these concepts apply to most Web 2.0 content.)
Step 1: Create Visitor Retrieval “Hooks”.
1. Email Confirmation. After a visitor has registered and posted their first message, send them an email confirmation so that they’ll later remember where they posted their question or answer.
Remember to include very specific calls to action to return to the forum. Also include copy telling them about the rest of the site, and provide links to encourage further visits.
2. Event-Driven Emails. When a registrant has posted a comment or answered a posted question, an email should be sent to the person who posted the original item to alert them that an answer has been posted. Again, make this email very action-oriented.
If the recipient doesn’t return within a pre-set time period, consider sending them a “Last Chance” reminder warning that their posting may be removed from the forum unless they return.
3. Formal On-Site and eNewsletter Promotion. 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. This will drive more readers to the site. (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.)
Step 2: Motivate Visitors to Participate.
1. Editor’s Picks. Encourage your editors to feature postings in or near their own articles. Being an official “Editor’s Pick” is 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.
In addition to providing added (cost-free) content sources, this practice also enables you to draw attention to useful posts which often go un-noticed because the topic/subject line was too cryptic to draw attention.
2. Member Ratings. Provide visitors (or the original posting member) with the opportunity to rate the quality of comments and answers. Automatically tie those ratings back to the registrant’s own record. Everyone wants to be an expert, and once again, this appeals to users’ ego.
In addition to triggering return visits from the registrant to see how they’re rated, this enables you to post the top point-winners in a prominent place. This will then spur competition among your registrants to provide the best-rated quality and quantity.
For many visitors, their reputation is their livelihood, and for others it’s simply an ego thing. Either way, this last function is a powerful accelerant to your community’s content quality, quantity and timeliness.
3. A Bribe. Offer a financial reward to those who provide answers and tips which are selected by your editors to be published. This also enables you to publicize the forum to your readers by having a piece of news to share with them about this reason to come to the forum and participate.
4. Provide Personal Profiles. A new trend in forums is to enable registrants to also post their own profile, with their picture and more information about them, including their email address if they choose to provide it. This enables social networking take place, without having to provide the functionality of a social networking hub in itself.
This enables registrants to click on a link to the profile of a member who posted their answer (or question) and to contact them when they have something in common. Just be sure to apply the same direct marketing principles described in the section above to encourage new registrants to take the action to post their profile.
You’ll also need to provide registrants with the ability to opt out of providing such details.
Step 3: Populate the community.
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.
1. The Sneak Preview Beta Test. 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.
2. Category Management. Avoid creating a bunch of categories until there is sufficient posting volume. It’s better to arrive and find 20 different threads in a single main forum vs. two in each sub-section. Over time you can create subcategories.
3. Appoint Forum Experts. This individual (or group of individuals) are committed in advance to ensuring that postings receive answers, including one from them if no-one else is posting. They can also act as your advisory board and content evangelists.
These may initially need to be editors, freelancers, or others in your niche with a vested interest in spreading their own name and wisdom. 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.
A Word About Inappropriate Content. 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..
Bill Baird is a leading subscription marketing advisor to publishers on the web. His clients include Consumerreports.org, NetDetective.com and EdWeek.org. He is also the creator of SPARKwatch, a best practice research and advisory service for web marketers. He can be reached at (203) 838-5444 or at http://www.bairddirect.com.
