Personally, I think many social networks are reaching CONTENT COMMENT FATIGUE, and many networks look the same and this does little to engage members to contribute or participate.
Unique Dynamic Commenting - Sets of Comment Types - How to make adding or Contributing Content and Commenting more engaging for members, rather than offer what every other social network offers for engaging users to comment on Content.
EasySocial and EasyDiscuss already have Badges, but at this time there is no way for an individual member to give those Badges or use those Badges as Praise or Motivators to another member. The Badges are only earned as the member uses the site and there seems to be little visual motivation to add Content and comments on the Stream. Most EasySocial networks look identical and there is a way to make the networks more UNIQUE and ENGAGING by utilizing the existing badges.
Why not make better use of the Badges within EasySocial and allow members to hand out Praise or Motivation to members who add content?
Most members of an Easysocial enabled network don't really see the motivation of achieving Badges as they are achieved over time. For the most part unless a network has a Badges page visible, most members will not see the Badges and understand the motivation, but if the badges were showing up in the comments on Posted Content on the stream there would be more reason for members to engage in adding content etc.
Here is the current set of EasySocial Badges - There is a Badge Achievement Notification feature going into ES 1.4 which is slated for March 2014, but not sure what this is? And then there is Claimable badges feature being adding into ES 1.5 in April 2014. Perhaps adding the ability to give out Badges on the Stream through Comments is something that should be added. ????? Add your ideas and thoughts below in the Replies.
Current set of EasySocial Badges
More people would
ADD MORE CONTENT if they were praised or given recognition for their addition of content, and it is proven that more than two thirds of employees say they would work harder if they were better recognized. Why not capitalize on this? The addition of Unique Comment Badges with a base package offered by an EasySocial site can be more engaging, and offer motivation features like the enterprise social networks such as Salesforce or Yammer where employee engagement is important to the network's overall engagement and success. The Motivate comment Badges from Work.com and the Praise Badges from Yammer helps to do just that. These networks create a collaborative culture where feedback and recognition are constantly given in real time. Motivate harnesses gamification through badge recognition directly within Salesforce to increase employee engagement and productivity. Through the use of dashboards you can keep track of metrics and engage employees by constructing leaderboards.
The following is a concept idea of adding unique comment types to EasySocial by adding SETS of Unique Comment Types. How hard would it be to allow members to offer current badges in the Stream? I do believe that this would engage more people to contribute content and add comments, and add better information in the photos they upload. Nothing more frustration than to see content added and no engagement. Why is this happening? Is it the content? Or does it have to do with Comment fatigue?
What are Unique Comment Types?
Currently, every social network you see using the same old comment look and feel and there is nothing to prompt the users to add unique comments to site content. To engage users, why not borrow and expand on methods used in Enterprise Social Networks like Yammer where the user can add a unique comment type that would be searchable and instantly recognized in the stream.
NEW UNIQUE COMMENT SETS
Think of the unique comment icons that can be created to make social networks unique! A soccer focused site could have soccer related icons types for comments. A fishing focused social network could have fishing icons, an education focused focused site could offer up education related motivation comment badges, etc. The possibilities to expand EasySocial into being a NICHE SOCIAL NETWORK BUILDER is endless, and it also creates OPPORTUNITIES for people to create new sets of UNIQUE COMMENT ICONS to add to an Easysocial site.
The Administrator can download a new Set of Comment Types (comment picons) and each comment icon can have short associated comment wording or suggestions to engage the user to add a unique comment to Post content, and this will trigger users to become more engaged in commenting on the Stream. Users can click Comment, and cycle through these Unique Comment Type icons, where they can chose a Comment Type ICON from the SET of icons to make commenting on EasySocial content more engaging. These new Unique Comment Types can be created by THIRD PARTIES and then added into to EasySocial by the Administrator so that users can use these unique comment types to give a site a unique feel to engage users.
In this example, I borrowed the UI from Yammer (cycling through comment praise icons) where the commenter is Praising someone and they give the user they are praising a specific icon and associated comment.
Here is a screenshot of the current Stream on my site using current features in EasySocial, followed by a mockup of the Stream after addition of Unique Comment Types.
Current Stream (before addition of Unique Comment Types)
The current method of adding comments does not really engage viewers to interact with the content at first glance. The user has to start reading more and people's attention spans are short nowadays with all the content on the web looking the same. Now look at the mockup below.
Mockup of Stream (after addition of Unique Comment Types)
The unique comment type icons give the viewer an idea of why the content might be interesting to them to follow or read. The icons catch the viewers attention and the unique nature of the Unique Comment Type Icons give people more to interact with to engage conversations.
Examples used in high end Enterprise Social Networks such as Salesforce Work.com network, and Yammer:
The idea of the Stream is to engage users to interact with the content, and the mockup example looks more engaging, especially when the user sees the Comment Icon can be cycled. Each icon can give the user an idea why they want to add a comment, and each comment can have more eye catching engagement for the content viewer and feedback for the content creator.
KEEP MAKING EASYSOCIAL the ENGAGEMENT NETWORK BUILDER
The popularity of social networking will continue to grow in the personal and business sector only as long as there are clear and measurable benefits that collaboration offers. By adding new Unique Comment Types to the Content Stream an Easysocial enabled social network can mix social networking with powerful performance management by turning Content contribution and achievements into a game – one in which your network members will both compete against each other and keep track of their own professional progress. The addition of unique features like this is as fun for your network members as it is useful.
Screencast 1:
http://screencast.com/t/9bHMHdsWU
This is a quick mock up demo.
Screencast demo:
http://screencast.com/t/pq6hHzrQLveq