[mickey]

OK, I just had a quick question concerning DisneyCentral.com, and I wanted everyone's input before proceeding. We have been growing pretty quickly, about 25 members per week, and I expect that to pick up a little as we enter the busy season at the parks, and people start to plan their vacations. The purpose of this forum is to act as a resource for members, and visitors, to plan their vacations, ask any question they need to know an answer about, or just a place to hang out. Well, in order to have an effective forum, the number of contributing members is very important. The more people you have hanging around, the more input you are going to get on your questions. If you look at our forum, we currently have 150 members, and about 38 are contributing (ie. they have posted in the forum, or left a review), which is a poor percentage. I would like to be about 50%, and we are at about 25%. Hence, my question:

What do we need to do to attract and entice people into becoming contributing members?

Any suggestions would be welcome. Oh, and if there is something you don't like, please let us know.

[spike]

I think you are doing a great job, this is the first site that I have came accross that made me want to participate. The only recommendation that I have is to include on the Home page inside the welcome box a statement similar to what you have stated above.
"The purpose of this forum is to act as a resource for members, and visitors, to plan their vacations, ask any question they need to know an answer about, or just a place to hang out. "

Build a quality Disney site, and they shall come.

Keep up the good work.

:)

[tigger]

I have to agree with Spike. This is the first Disney site I have become a member of.

Your doing a great job Mickey, these things just take a little time build volume.

Keep up the good work!

[mickey]

I appreciate your feedback, and the positive comments. I hope that we can keep this going and improve on what we have.

Your doing a great job Mickey, these things just take a little time build volume.

Don't get me wrong, I am very satisfied with the current traffic. Our inclusion in to Yahoo.com really boosted visitors. I am actually a little ahead of what I projected, so I can't complain about that. I am just looking for ways to improve the site so that we can attract a more involved customer. For example, I really think that the weekly community bulletin works well, and I see a significant spike in traffic and posts the 24 hours following the email. Any suggestions that could improve the site are more than welcome.

Thanks again! :)

[Michael Darling]

Remember that Google.com uses the number of pages that link to a site to rank search results and even to include it in their search engine. I think that an important step would be to ask the members of the community already to include a link (even just a text hyperlink) to disneycentral.com on their homepages.

Word of mouth may be the best way this community will grow. If all of our current members get one person to come that's a lot of more members! Perhaps using the referral feature of the vBulletin forums to rank current users in number of referrals and have that information available to the community might be an incentive to spread the word more?

Once people are here they like to see their member status change. Perhaps the first two statuses or so could change at a lower number of posts to sort of tease new members into posting a bit more to progress through the ranks. The higher levels could be further apart in posting intervals... but not revealing the numbers needed would be a key... keep the newbies guessing! ;)

I'd like to second (or perhaps third) the comments that say you're doing well, mickey. Membership has more than tripled since I joined in November. Good work! I know how hard it is to get traffic to a site. If this community remains a friendly place to learn, discuss, and hang out those members will stick around.

[edit:]
Oh! Another idea! Since you want to improve the activity in the forums maybe have awards for things like the most helpful topic, most intriguing topic, most helpful response, etc. The nominated member's prize can be a custom avatar that will show off to the entire virtual world that they are a helpful and vital part of Disney Central's forums. This may encourage other, newer members to try and do the same.

Again, these are all just ideas, almost a stream of consciousness just pouring out of my little brain... :)

[mickey]

Perhaps using the referral feature of the vBulletin forums to rank current users in number of referrals and have that information available to the community might be an incentive to spread the word more?

I have activated the referral program, and it is now working. I will get the referral leaders on the front page, with an explanation, so that every one can see.

Once people are here they like to see their member status change. Perhaps the first two statuses or so could change at a lower number of posts to sort of tease new members into posting a bit more to progress through the ranks

I will work on this. Any suggestions for the lower level ranks? I think right now it goes Jr. Mouseketeer, Mouseketeer, Senior Mouseketeer and Big Cheese. I wouldn't mind adding a couple more in there.

Oh! Another idea! Since you want to improve the activity in the forums maybe have awards for things like the most helpful topic, most intriguing topic, most helpful response, etc. The nominated member's prize can be a custom avatar that will show off to the entire virtual world that they are a helpful and vital part of Disney Central's forums. This may encourage other, newer members to try and do the same.

Great idea. We could have a monthly contest, and give a couple of people custom avatars and allow them to change their user title to what ever they want for the month in which they are the winner. I will work on that for February.
Thanks again for the great suggestions!

[Michael Darling]

If you want to go with an animation theme for the titles how about:
* Sketch Artist
* Ink and Paint Artist
* Assistant Storyboard Artist
* Lead Storyboard Artist
* Project Assistant
* Project Leader
* Producer

Or Imagineering theme:
* Imagineering Applicant
* Imagineering Intern
* Assistant Imagineer
* Project Specialist
* Lead Project Imagineer
* Executive Imagineer
* Michael Eisner's Replacement

I kinda like the idea of an imagineering theme for the user titles (not necissairly these titles though... they're kinda rough...) since I will one day (hopefully at least) be an imagineer... [crosses fingers];) :)

[mickey]

I appreciate everyone's response, and help with the site. If there are any other suggestions, I would like to hear them. Remember, as a member of DisneyCentral, it is your site as well. If you were thinking "I sure could use _______", let us know, and we will try to help.

By the way, I was thinking of adding a countdown on the front page, so that you could put in the date of your next Disney trip, and on the front page, there would be a box, counting down month, days, hours and minutes until your next trip. Would that be something of interest? Or would it be more dissapointing to see everyday that you still have nine months to go until you get a bit of the magic?

Thanks again!