DISQUS

QuirkeeJames · 1 year ago

"Do the members of other social media sites lose their passion quickly and move on?"

Yes.

"Is it that cre8Buzz doesn’t offer enough to keep people over the long haul."

Yes, but you are working on that.

"Is it because of our size and lack of hundreds of thousands of users?"

Not necessarily hundreds of thousands but the more members in a community help it thrive - just look at the Moms on cre8Buzz.

"Why is it folk’s leave? "

I think one reason folks leave is because they are not seeing everything they need to keep them around, which makes working on those features quickly even more important.

Personally, I have a ton of stuff on my plate this Summer and when you throw both kids in the mix because school is out then it makes it that much harder to interact on many sites, not just cre8Buzz. I'm sure this is the case for a lot of folks who travel, spend time with their families, work on house projects, go camping, fishing, boating, grilling with their neighbors, etc.

Summertime has always been a stats killer for many sites.

Antman · 1 year ago

I'm hearin' a lot 'bout it being a summer thing also. I think you
are right on many of your points. We need to identify initiatives to
address them.

jnbammer · 1 year ago

I think it probably is typical to see a drop. There is a life cycle of a customer too. They go through many stages, as you mentioned. If, by the time they get through one lifecycle, you haven't sold them on the benefits of staying, then they will probably leave.

Here's the thing, from my point of view, my blog featured on the buzz is a big reason why I came here. I recognize that networking is good too, but there are other, much larger sites for that (FB & MS). cre8Buzz is very low on my referral traffic stats, in spite of me being active and having top rated content.

I recognize that there is branding value of what I do, which goes beyond referral traffic; however, if you could find a way to help me increase referral traffic to my blog (like StumbleUpon does), then I would be compelled to visit more often.

PG · 1 year ago

I called in to utterz last night on my drive home from work and shared my (somewhat coherent) thoughts

http://www.utterz.com/u/utt/u-NTExMjQ4MQ#uttNTE...

Karen meg · 1 year ago

For me, it's a matter of time available to do everything. People are busy, and fickle. That's the bottom line. I've even cut down on my blogging. That's just the reality ... esp when the kids are at home.

Antman · 1 year ago

good point Karen.

Jackal · 1 year ago

As an active member of the photo community maybe I can say I understand the frustration of those who leave the photo community. It is time consuming and frustrating to try to upload images, then have to move them into position - which often has to be re-done.
There are plenty of other sites which offer much better facilities to enable folks to upload and arrange their images and navigate and comment.
Improvements have been made - but I am afraid for many it is too little too late.
The forums turned many people off and folks just stopped bothering to try.
Not enough people give written feedback, comments, critique. There are not enough folks 'active' or willing to get more involved. Some great photographers signed up but very quickly disappeared - the site being too amateur for many of the seasoned photographers. The ones we needed to be able to keep and utilize to harbour a supportive, informative
Too many folks do not utilize the promotional features like stumbleupon etc. People no longer try to rearrange new images to top so folks don't see new content. They have to go looking for it. Again, folks don't want to have to spend time rummaging for things - they want quick, easy naviagtion.
Basically the promise has failed to deliver.

Antman · 1 year ago

Jackal,

You are absolutely correct. It was hard to read, but the truth
hurts. Having multiple communities, in essence, puts us in
competition with all the other single focused vertical communities,
cre8Buzz photos with flicker, cre8Buzz Moms with Cafe Moms etc,
etc. This is clearly a HUGE weakness despite it's advantages, as we
are unable to do many of the things they do, better or just as
well. Moving forward we will need to find away to address this.

Thanks Jackal. Great feedback.

jnbammer · 1 year ago

I think there has got to be a way to make the Buzz a destination site and not a "when I get around to it site." Having a unique and exciting feature or benefit for each of the communities is something key to increasing traffic and destination. I imagine that this could be something to incorporate into a work plan as justification for needed funding. These types of features and benefits could happen internally or through partnerships, much like Facebook and others do. Then, you could ultimately look for ways to monetize around these key items that keep people coming back. Just my thoughts.

Antman · 1 year ago

Thanks for your support Jeremy. Your feedback has been invaluable.

jojo · 1 year ago

The web is a wide open place with a plethora of sites and interests. I think that the common theme here is using the places and methods like stumble upon to increase refferals. This is important to users like the entrepreneurs and the site which at this time needs viewers! We need to showcase our advantages without loosing the feel of the closeknit family like atmosphere. Most buzzers are quite loyal and if they are not super active they tell why. Can we showcase members of each major community weekly to keep interest and the view time they are looking for? Many of our entrepreneurs are serious go getters, lets show them and others we are serious about them as well.

Antman · 1 year ago

jojo,

this is a great point, the buzz needs more features showcasing the
members and their talent. cre8Buzz Re-Do b-plan is targeting
features that do just that.

Great feedback!

Ian (ijhedges) · 1 year ago

Sorry its taken me a while to comment on this, it taken me a while to work out what I wanted to say.

You've asked the question about why active members slow down, I think its a combination of many things. As mentioned above, summer and other family activities will take a hit on blogging time. I don't think the size of the community is directly a problem, it was tight when there were only a couple of hundred users, the growth in the communities has improved this in the communities that have grown.

When I joined Cre8Buzz last August, I already had my own blog and photo gallery and saw Cre8Buzz as a great outlet to promote these. It has been, and I believe it will continue to be. For quite a while I was part of the 'welcome wagon', greeting new members when they joined. I was moderately active adding pictures and posts to my profile. I'd join in the photo assignments and enjoy the challenge it provided. I took pleasure in customising my profile, adding additional sections, even created a test chat room for use by the community. After a while, I realised I was spending the limited blogging time I had trolling for new members and greeting them rather than actually posting content. When I realised this, it made me start to question what my purpose of posting on Cre8Buzz was. Looking at my blog, the posts had almost dried up and I had stopped uploading images to my gallery. What had started as a promotion of my content had over a period of time replaced my content. Chasing the buzzrank became an exercise in uploading images and getting views.

Like Jackal has commented, the frustrations of the reordering of photos has passed the point that I want to use it. The photos assignments are great, and credit to Jackal for driving this uphill battle. Unfortunately, as she said, very few people actually tried to give any critique on photos, there have been some great photographers who have joined Cre8Buzz, but have moved on because it didn't work. The forums have never worked like a normal forum and this should have been picked up at the initial testing/design stage; while acknowledging this problem is great, they still haven't been resolved, still sorting by last view.

I'm hoping after a bit of a break, I'll be able to come back and join in active and motivated again.

Ian

Antman · 1 year ago

Thanks Ian,

great feedback.

geechee_girl · 1 year ago

Social media sites that are not easy see a drop. MySpace and Twitter retain users because in spite of their flaws they are, above all else, easy to use. Happy to explain further off comments.

Antman · 1 year ago

You are absolutely correct, and spot on. We have seen this and need
to figure out how to make it easier and "FIT" into folks day to day.

Thanks Leslie,

jsinkeywest · 1 year ago

In my experience.The biggest effect is the owners.In the mid size communities I have seen the owners disregard the members.People on line like in life like to feel special and appreciated.Also cliques like on Blogcatalog you have 6-10
members that can ruin an entire site.People online want traffic and it's difficult to make strong alliances because most people are self centered and don't think of others.They want visitors,they want people to click on their ads but they don't themselves.You can see what people are doing or not doing.I'm glad I have a nice group that I don't have to stress this anymore but it took 1000's of people to find 10 real ones:)
Cool site I'm going to be looking forward to meeting some cool people and netowrk with bloggers Thanks