Casey Wright’s featured post today, 5 Ways to Make ActiveRain Quitters Take a Second Look, is a thoughtful piece with concrete suggestions. ‘Not surprising it has garnered a lot of comments endorsing and debating his ideas. My own comment was growing way too long, so I edited it (shorter) and decided to piggy-back on his post, not focusing on activerain quitters as he did, but on one factor that I believe impacts both consumers and members who never become engaged in activerain - its user-friendliness.
It’s not unusual for me to take a really good idea and kill it with too much detail and this post may be one of those. Many of us are guilty of that, I’m sure, so I’m in good company – activerain included. I think the activerain founders are geniuses and this is not intended to second guess them. In fact, it’s intended more to suggest they pause, stop second-guessing themselves (evidenced by nearly daily innovations) and not complicate a really good idea with too much detail.
BACKGROUND:
I haven’t a shred of insider info, but I’m guessing they intended to:
Create a website for consumers
that would be populated with content
by real estate professionals.
GREAT IDEA!
This website would provide "more interaction, more Google synergy, more flexibility, more avenues for member participation, more opportunity for business development..." as described by Lenn Harley in her comment on Casey's post, summarizing the activerain we now know and love.
Real estate professionals would be compensated by points instead of money (based on participation, not quality), but financial rewards would come through business generated by this exposure. After growing their membership to a certain point, activerain would monetize their business - i.e., generate (1) income to pay for all the infrastructure required to operate this business and (2) profit to reward those who invested in this idea and funded it throughout activerain's infancy – through advertising, changing from “free” to “paid” memberships, generating leads/referrals, and expanding their product to offer paid outside blogs, among other things.
I’m guessing it was a pleasant surprise to them that activerain turned into a social media website where members developed professional and personal relationships, since Facebook and others were not widely used by professionals in those days. Then, as content grew exponentially, they decided to organize it better (channels?) and, as membership exploded, activerain responded beyond all member’s expectations, trying to satisfy everyone’s suggestions/address everyone’s complaints.
But let’s get back to what I’m guessing was probably the original good idea: Create a website for consumers that would be populated with content provided by real estate professionals.
NOW:
Let’s face it… activerain is not user-friendly for the target audience, i.e. consumers and new members - assuming my guess is accurate - especially those who are casual Internet users or intimidated for any reason. If activerain has any weakness, in my opinion this would be it. There's nothing I can find to tell either group "What's in it for them." With that in mind, here are a few suggestions:
- Create a slogan to use on the activerain homepage header that tells first-time visitors what the heck this website is. For example, real estate information and commentary for consumers and real estate professionals (Maybe they could have a contest to come up with a slogan... that would be fun!)
- Make it easy for consumers and new members to "spot" exactly WHAT'S IN IT FOR THEM with a brief intro in the right column. That's what will make them become engaged in ActiveRain, not lists of channels or photos of 2 members with lots of points.
- Create tabs, not just links for the top navigation bar - it's what consumers are accustomed to using on consumer-oriented websites. Let someone else re-train them.
- Agents and other real estate professionals are accustomed to logging in at the bottom of their own homepage and other sites they use, so create "log in" and "my home page" links at the bottom of the activerain homepage - it would be an adjustment for those of us who are creatures of habit, but we'd figure it out.
- Below "what's in it for them", use the right column for advertisers and testimonials (maybe a new testimonial each day as a way of highlight 365 members/yr.).
- Create an easy-to-find "Subscribe" feature for email and RSS Feed for the homepage (and each of our blogs). Note- there's a really good idea in the comments, enable subscriptions to channels... maybe even for states or counties or cities.
- Build a new user-friendly homepage on the outside, complete it, and only then implement it - NOT one change a day 'til done. Please.
If you can't visualize these ideas, here's my rough rough rough draft of a simpler homepage:
If your computer screen is too small to read these snippets in the right column, there's probably a feature on your computer to enlarge the view - on mine, it is "zoom" in the pulldown menu of "view" in the toolbar.
Yes, I could go on, but this is long enough. Maybe another post, another day.
If any consumers or new members are reading this, YOUR suggestions would be the most valuable possible input, so please comment.
Let me be clear: This is intended to be a suggestion box limited to this topic, NOT a gripe session. If you don't have something nice to say, please say it in a private email or not at all.
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Margaret Woda is a licensed Associate Broker in Crofton Maryland. She specializes in serving the real estate needs of home owners and home buyers in Anne Arundel, Howard and Prince George's Counties, Maryland, including Fort Meade, Andrews AFB, and the U.S. Naval Academy. If you enjoyed reading this post, check out Focus On Crofton and Your Online Relocation Package for Anne Arundel County.
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