Content 2.0
Contents
Content 2.0
Build/Edit Your Thank You Page
Manage Invitations, Submissions & Comments
You've created a solid base of content for your site. Now it's time to take it to the next level...
Have your visitors create content for you! Even better, have them want to create content for you.
Content 2.0 helps you ignite that desire, and helps you make it easy for visitors to contribute their topic-related content. With it, you can...
- invite your visitors to submit their thoughts and opinions, or to add comments about existing submissions.
- manage their contributions quickly and easily.
- add an AdSense Link Unit to every submission page automatically, and to every comment page or section.
Use your knowledge of your visitors and the Content 2.0 tools to compose compelling invitations that "get the content."
Whether it's for a favorite Anguilla hotel review, an opinion on the best mountains to hike in, or a chocolate chip cookie recipe submission, once you set up your invitation, the only thing left for you to do is manage the content.
Three Critical Content 2.0 Resources
Remember "BAM" (Brain Attitude Motivation)? Well, you can now benefit from the Brains of others, those visitors who share knowledge and passion for your niche! All you need to do is Motivate those visitors to want to participate.
No matter how interesting your niche may be, folks are not lining up to "create content" for your site. So three important resources help you get the knowledge out of your visitors' heads and onto your site.
The C2 Guide shows you how to get the most out of Content 2.0. A big picture overview, along with indispensible tips and strategies, ensures that your visitors are eager to contribute to your site.
If you want Content 2.0 to succeed while reducing your learning curve and trial-and-error to a minimum, do not go beyond this point until you've printed and read The C2 Guide.
The second resource is the Content 2.0 video. It will further reduce your learning curve, and ensure you get the most out of C2.
The third resource is the Content 2.0 Forum. This is the place to share ideas. Just one tip on how to word a button on your Invitation can make a big difference! As always, "help and be helped."
One last word, well two words actually...
Tortoise It!. Slow and steady wins the race.
- Click on the Create an Invitation button in the Content 2.0 Library to enter InvitationBuilder.
- Build your new Invitation.
- Customize your Thank You Page.
- Customize your AutoConfirm E-mail (sent out if the contributor asks to be notified).
- Build your Notification (which you receive when someone submits a contribution).
- Add the invitation to your page using the Content 2.0 invitation block or directly via your HTML editor and Upload Your Own HTML.
The basic Content 2.0 process is as follows (what you need to do is in bold)...
- Build/edit the invitation here (starting from the Content 2.0 Library). This process includes customizing the Thank You page (recommended), customizing the AutoConfirm e-mail (recommended), and setting your Notification preferences.
- Place the invitation on one of your Web pages (using the Content 2.0 Invitation block in SiteBuilder or with your HTML Editor and the Upload Your Own HTML module).
- The contributor submits her content (text with optional uploaded photo).
- The contributor sees the Thank You Page and has the chance to edit her submission. She also decides if she wants you (SBI!) to notify her automatically when you publish her submission, and/or when others comment on it.
-
You receive an e-mail telling you that someone has submitted content. Log in to the Content 2.0 Library, scroll down to that invitation, select the submission, and then choose one of two options...
-
accept it (editing it if necessary).
(Once accepted, you can also merge it with other similar submissions onto one Web page.) -
- delete it (with the option to ban the contributor from submitting more content).
-
- If you accept the submission, C2 builds a new page (the photo may not appear for up to 30 minutes), and the contributor receives an AutoConfirm e-mail from SBI! (only if she asked to be notified), telling her that her contribution has been accepted, with a live link to the page.
- Other visitors read the contributor's submission and can rate it and/or comment on it (optional). They have the option of contributing original content as well.
-
You receive a notification e-mail that a comment has been added (if you selected that option) or that you have one waiting for your approval (if you selected that option). You can...
- edit and save the comment
- delete it, or
- delete it with the option to ban the commenter.
Tips
-
Write "Invitingly"
Once you know why your visitors want to contribute to your site, you'll know how to write an invitation that "speaks" to them and "gets the content." More details will follow in the InvitationBuilder help.
-
The 80/20 "Rule"
You don't want to spend all of your time managing contributors' content at the expense of neglecting your own content and other aspects of your site. This may not sound like a problem now, but the viral marketing that Content 2.0 provides could make your site very popular very quickly. You don't want to spend a lot of your time on content management duties.
So keep it simple by adding invitations to select pages only.
-
Managing Contributor Content
The key thing to remember when managing your contributors' submissions is that this content is theirs, not yours. Don't edit it to match the "voice" you use throughout your site.
Proofread it for typos and spelling mistakes, and edit out "commercials," spam and similar content (since this is about sharing, not selling).
The title also becomes the first keyword in the Meta Keywords tag. If the title your contributor submitted is long and rambling, shorten it (if possible) to about 5 words. You're not trying to pass Analyze It!. You'll be gaining traffic from the long tail of keywords, so don't worry about getting the title exactly right. But you also don't want a 15 word phrase as your first keyword in the Meta tag.
If the submission starts with "Hi, I love your site" or similar "off-topic" text, edit that out, as it will become part of the link description found at the bottom of the invitation page and part of the Meta Description tag. The limit is 150 characters. If the submission is less than 150 characters (ex., a question asked as part of a FAQ system), consider answering the question inside the submission (instead of as a comment), to pad it to at least 500 characters -- about 50 words or so. This will give the Search Engines something to analyze to determine the content of the page.
For more information on improving submissions, see Step 9 of The C2 Guide.
Other than those changes, try to leave the content as it was written by your contributors. They'll be very disappointed if they send friends and family to read their submission, then learn that you changed it so much that it's no longer their content, but yours.
Besides, you have better things to do than spend hours editing other people's writing to make it match your writing style or suit your tastes. Remember the 80/20 rule.