While it’s possible that I’ve already caused the more buzzword-averse among you to roll your eyes out of your sockets, the much vaunted “gamification” of all manner of things is one that is directly relevant to many forum communities. Give me a moment and perhaps I can persuade you of the benefits of using such systems. Perhaps more importantly, I might manage to persuade you of the pitfalls.
Earlier this year analyst firm IDC reported that the #1 social business initiative is creating online communities. Many companies, having seen the power of social media and customer-to-customer interactions, are now looking to create a cohesive ‘on domain’ community for their customers and partners rather than trying to manage interactions across multiple social networks.
Over the last few years, comment systems have become ubiquitous across all web content. Indeed, in many places the humble forum has been pushed out in favour of it’s more exciting and accessible cousin. There’s even one at the bottom of this article. There are a lot of advantages to giving your readers/fans/cultists a simpler method of feedback, but one look at many comments, for example those on YouTube, will quickly reveal a huge problem with the users of such systems. Namely, their tendency to be terrible.
Vanilla will be attending ForumCom on June 13th at the Kabuki Hotel in San Francisco.
“ForumCon is your opportunity to connect with and learn from the world’s leading forum and community managers.”
Let us know if you’ll be there! If you’re planning on attending, here’s a 20% discount code: Vanilla2013
Having gone over some common issues with problem users in previous articles, it is unfortunately time to deal with some of the more serious issues you may encounter as a community manager. You will hopefully never have to deal with these more difficult kinds of problems but it’s important to be prepared. It should be stressed that I am not a medical professional and can only speak from my personal experience. I would urge anyone who is facing these issues to do their own research an seek out expert advice. Continued…
Vanilla's next gen forum platform lets you build a community that will really engage your audience to drive participation and advocacy.
Todd Burry Chief Product Officer, Co-Founder
Tim GunterDirector of Infrastructure and Ops
Mark O'SullivanCo-Founder
Matt Lincoln Russell Developer
Luc Vezina CEO
