How To Engage and Sustain Your User Base

What emotional rewards do your users walk away with when they visit your site/s?

That is thought-provoking question that will be good to ask yourself once in a while. The question was originally posed by Kevin Rose of Digg, Diggnation and We Follow fame, when he presented at this year’s The Future of Web Apps (FOWA) in London. The title of his talk was “9 Ways to Take Your Site from One to One Million Users” and Rose touched upon some really useful ideas on how to grow a user base.

Some of the main take aways from his keynote are:

Social currency

• Create a social currency that gets users involved and engaged. Examples are Twitter’s follower count and the now defunct leader board of Digg

Simplicity

• Pick 2-3 things to focus on and stick to them. When developing an interface, ask yourself: “Is there anything I can take out?”

“Hack the press”

• Develop an invite only system to fuel publicity
• Don’t focus on the Michael Arringtons of the world. Talk to junior bloggers instead

Engage

• Be an active participant in your own community