Popsicle sticks don’t become log cabins without glue.
Your users are popsicle sticks. The log cabin is the community you hope to inspire around your product, idea, service, whatever. To achieve it, you need to pay attention to one very important fact.
Every successful social network has something in common: its members are sniffing glue. They’re grabbing at the bait. They’re drinking the Kool-Aid.
To build a community, you need to find that one magical thing that adheres the popsicle sticks to each other and then set your users up to inhale.
For Flickr, it’s images. For del.icio.us, it’s bookmarks. For Twitter, it’s the members themselves, all of which have the potential to build a large community of followers (or not) simply by being who they are.
The “social object”, as it’s called, is what ties people together. It’s what makes you popular. It’s what makes those who already love you convince other people to love you, too.
Of course, like many things, social objects are measured in degrees of greatness. The iPhone and the MINI Cooper are great products. Your get-it-in-any-grocery-store cheese might be, too. But the odds of your cheese being a great social object are slim. Great social objects are remarkable. They’re worth talking about. They inspire conversation. And unless you have that, you can probably bet on a small community.
So, what is it for you? What’s your glue and how do you convince people to sniff it?
I’m happy to announce the official release of my hour-long Peachpit video-training course designed specifically to help you increase your conversion rate.
For the low, low price of $24.99 online/$29.99 DVD, you learn about five essential “signup framework” elements, why they exist, and how and where to use them, complete with examples from successful sites and stories from my own projects.
As you all know, one of the most important elections in our history will be held tomorrow, November 4th, so I’d like to make one last plea.
If you haven’t already voted, set your alarms. Get up early. Go straight to your polling location and vote.
Don’t assume that your candidate of choice is a sure-thing. Go out and make it happen.
On a personal note, I’d like to extend my hope that you vote for Barack Obama.
Obama has the judgment, intelligence, policy proposals, and the wisdom to turn this country around, whereas John McCain would take the lead on the failed policies of the past 8 years and continue driving the country deeper into the mess it’s already in.
Now’s your chance to make a difference. No election on our lifetimes has been more important than this one.
And the winners are … Justin David, Chris Griffith, and Sotheavy Ouk.
Congratulations, and thanks for playin’!
=====
The <head> conference kicks off tomorrow, and I have three free tickets to give away, courtesy of Aral Balkan, the conference organizer.
The conference is the world’s first international, all-online conference. Sessions will be given using Adobe Connect, there’s an IRC backchannel, and even scheduled gatherings in Second Life.
All sessions will be recorded, so don’t worry if you can’t watch it live. You can always sign in after the event and catch up on anything you missed.
My session is this Saturday at 1pm Pacific / 2pm Mountain / 3pm Central / 4pm EST time (20:00 UCT). If you’re more into the coding side of things, Stephanie’s session is at the same time.
Interested? The first 3 people to contact me with the correct answer to the following question win:
What is the Japanese term for “error-proofing”? (Hint: it was discussed in Designing the Obvious.)
ideas worth stealing
