July 30, 2008

Everyone's Got 'Em...

Del.icio.us   Technorati   Digg   StumbleUpon

Opinions, that is. And in this digital age, everyone's got some kind of soapbox to shout them from, be it online pollsters stickin' it to ‘em by clicking radio buttons, or folks posting comments, message threads, diggs, tweets, etc. And truth be told, whether subliminally or not, we pay attention so it's worth examining what this user engagement means from both the business and the end-user perspective.

On the business side, an engaged visitor base means that the site creator has transcended simply capturing someone's attention, and has tapped into his or her passion. It takes effort to participate on a site in some way beyond clicking around-registering, voting, posting, etc. And that participation means that the visitor is involved, engaged, intrigued or challenged in some way that motivated them to action.

These small victories are important, as they are quantifiable measures of a site's success. For example, take the number of comments divided by the number of unique visitors on a monthly basis and you'll get a rough look at the degree of visitor engagement. This can then be used as a baseline as you grow your visitor base.

As a site visitor, what your peers think is almost as important as the actual content itself. This works both on an individual site basis, where people frequently use the "most view" or other visitor-driven links to point them to content. This also works on an aggregate (or meta-site) basis. Take a look at Google, for example.

Google's search rankings are a huge popularity contest. Sure there are algorithms that analyze for keywords and keyphrases in site content, but plain and simple, Google uses click-throughs to help determine site rankings. If Site X appears 4^th in the Google search results list, but everyone that searches on the given search phrase clicks on Site X first, then the site will move up in the list, keywords be damned. Likewise if everyone in the blogosphere posts links to the page. So as Web browsers, we're always on the hunt for what's popular and are inherently drawn to sites and content frequented (and thereby validated) by our peers. There's simply too much out there to not have some system for determining what's worthy of our attention and what's not.

Sites can give visitors the chance to interact with content, to tag it, to share it, and to somehow voice their opinion. As a visitor it's exciting to get to discover something. We all have that "one that got away" story about some YouTube clip that we saw wwwwayyyyy before anyone else. And with a chance to raise a flag on that content, vote on it, or otherwise invest in it, we suddenly have a stake in its success. We've made a tiny emotional connection, not just to the content, but also to the site where it was presented. And like many people, as a visitor, the more that I feel that my voice can be heard, the more I want to contribute. The more people that contribute, the more traffic comes to the site, lather, rinse, repeat, and thus the site can grow to have a seriously engaged community.

I know that visitor (and thereby community) engagement will require a different tone based on your site's target demographics, but I refuse to believe that contribution and engagement falls strictly along lines of age. Know your audience, know how they like to communicate, and give them the soapbox, however small. It could be all the welcome they need. 

Posted at 07:19 pm by Craig McEldowney

Del.icio.us   Technorati   Digg   StumbleUpon

Add comment

• A Crisis of Identity in the Digital Age 01/14/2010 - 21:30
• What TweenBots Can Teach About Federating Tasks 05/26/2009 - 18:53
• Buzz makes the world go around, doesn't it? 12/17/2008 - 17:53
• Holes in the Dam 08/08/2008 - 14:55
• Beyond Keywording 07/23/2008 - 14:03
• iWant an iPhone 07/16/2008 - 18:20
• Why Build a Website In the First Place? 05/01/2008 - 18:04
• My Development Toolbox 03/10/2008 - 23:50

Contact DPCI to learn more about our Web content management systems,
digital asset management solutions, online collaboration software, custom development, multi-channel publishing systems, and workflow management solutions.