Posted by: Chris Bailey at 9:19AM EST on August 27, 2008
Yesterday,
Lacey wrote about how to engage folks who are interested in volunteering for organizations. It's a great segue into another area
that I find lacking in most nonprofit websites: staff and
organizational employees. What do they both have in common? Your
volunteers and paid staff are part of a diverse community within your
organization. However, it's this diversity in community that is often
neglected.
Frequently, staff can get left aside in the community. Why? Is it because they are paid members of the community?
Are their roles separate from the community that includes folks like
donors, volunteers, Board members? If you're thinking 'yes' to either
of these questions, I would argue that these ideas can't work in
today's world where employee engagement is a true key to strong
organizational health. It's time to bring your staff more fully into your organization's community.
Here are some ideas that can help you better integrate your own staff into your organization's community:
Let
your staff tell their stories. Why they work for your nonprofit. What
they enjoy in life. Let their unique characters come out so donors and
other external folks who are passionate about your cause can connect
with them. Don't sequester them to mere names, phone numbers, and email
addresses on your Contact Us page. For instance, here at Convio, we
have this blog as one way to allow us employees to share ourselves and
what we know with our community.
Don't
settle for stock employee photos when you have real pictures. I'm not a
big fan of stock photos of shiny happy people. They just don't connect
with me. Instead, consider using real pictures of your staff doing the
work that matters to your cause. Put these in relevant spots on your
website. Your donors and activists want to see staff passionately
serving their cause.
Engage
your staff as ambassadors. I wrote in more detail about this last month. Again, if you're committed to creating a work environment that
focuses on employee engagement, then help your staff find ways to speak
openly and enthusiastically about their work. Feature this work
prominently on your website. Guide your staff into talking about and
sharing their successes and best practices at conferences. For more ideas on employee engagement, visit www.baileyworkplay.com.
I'm
not advocating that you make your website completely staff-focused,
just more balanced to reflect the true community that your organization
creates daily. Nonprofit work is demanding. And while it can also be
rewarding, every individual wants to know they are seen and valued for
the work they do. Donors, advocates, and other folks on the outside of
the organization don't often know and appreciate the work that goes on
inside. Don't be afraid to shine a spotlight on your own staff and what
they do every day.
Posted by: Doug Callahan at 1:32AM EST on August 27, 2008
"Feedback is a gift!"
I have some feedback for whoever came up with that little pearl of wisdom. Although it's true; "Feedback is a gift" often gets the same reaction as "Eat your vegetables!" And like vegetables, everyone's favorite form of feedback is, of course, unsolicited. However, I am not going to suggest you take feedback from constituents and come up
with an elaborate scheme so you can hide the feedback in a napkin and give it to the dog under the table. The importance of handling feedback and supporting constituents is proportionally equal to the degree of relationship the non-profit has with their constituents. Visitors to a non-profit site are looking for some level of transaction (information, donation, advocacy action) and relationship (trust, connection, emotion). Often the relations drive further transactions so knowing the visitor's needs is essential to responding and catering to them. I'm resisting the urge here to fly off on tangents of measuring needs, demographics, user experience design, etc. and focusing on feedback and relations. Like relations, feedback can be direct or perceived. For non-profits looking to meet needs, foster relations and therefore increase transactions, handling various forms of feedback should be carefully considered.
"Mind your peas and stews."
Yes, back to vegetable analogies! Ok not really, I had no where to go with them. Direct feedback can take the form of a "contact us" survey, an escalation of an issue, praise, or direct involvement. Perceived feedback generally needs to be inferred by analyzing data (site traffic, visitor behavior), A/B splits and escalation trends. This perceived or indirect feedback is arguably more important because it is what constituents do rather than what they say. Unfortunately it's often given less weight or even ignored because it can be difficult to measure and properly analyze. A good way to begin exploring the indirect feedback is by starting with the direct. Escalations on difficulties with a site (navigating, donating, registering, taking action etc.) often come in as anecdotal data that can be verified and measured over time. Here is an example of anecdotal data turning into empirical: an organization was receiving several different complaints from constituents participating in a walk event. The complaints ranged from difficulties getting friends and family to donate to them, trouble finding their personal, customized participant center page, donations ending up in a general fund instead of where they were intended and various other complaints from participants who had been to prior events. Looking at the common threads and walking through the user experiences of several of the participants reporting problems it was discovered that the root cause was the user experience itself, mainly that there was no obvious login nor visual cues that they were logged in or out. In my next post I'd like to discuss some of the systems several organizations use to track issues and feedback. There are tools to make it more efficient to handle issues and create a feedback loop so areas of improvement can be found.
"Chocolate is a vegetable"
It's true, sort of... it comes from a bean. And if I'm sticking to this feedback is a vegetable analogy for some reason then, like chocolate, feedback is bittersweet. I'm sorry I just really like chocolate so I had to work it in here. I'm hoping this all ends up tricking someone into giving me chocolate instead of feedback some day!
I welcome any feedback (or chocolate) you may have.
Posted by: laceykruger at 10:29AM EST on August 26, 2008
A few weeks ago, I posted about my lackluster search for volunteer opportunities on the web and promised to follow up with a guide to great volunteer sections. So, without further ado – please enjoy…
The problem that I've seen with so many non-profit volunteer sections is that they try to pack too much information onto one page. Maybe it’s that engaging volunteers is really a secondary goal to engaging donors, so you don’t want to spend too much time planning content for this area. Or, maybe you think that volunteers want the information all in one place. Well, I’m proposing more of a step-by-step approach since that’s typically how a volunteer program works.
Step One. Find out what volunteering for your organization is all about and make sure I've come to the right place. (I, being the volunteer)
Step Two. Browse your volunteer opportunities. This step can be as simple as looking at a list of a few different types of volunteer opportunities or as complex as selecting from a set of menus to narrow down numerous options until I find the right one.
Step Three. Complete an application. Again, depending on your organization, this step varies. You may require that I sign up for an orientation online, complete an online application, or schedule a phone screen. This is the step where I've determined I'm interested and am committed to moving forward. Your main goal here should be to capture my contact information so you can keep in touch with me since I'm a potential volunteer.
Connecticut Humane Society does a great job of following the step-by-step approach in their volunteer section.
Users can link to each step directly from this box to get started in becoming a volunteer. Also, there are additional pathways for users to access the steps – via the left navigation and promotional call-outs in the right column – which is great for repeat visitors that may not want to go through all three steps.
DePelchin Children’s Center isn’t as explicit with the step-by-step approach, but all three steps are clearly defined. Also, the site makes step two – finding a volunteer opportunity – very easy, especially considering the wide variety of options they offer. They start off by asking the user to select which group they fall into, Individual, Group or Youth, then they list out all of the options available for each segment. The user can then click to register for Volunteer Orientation, which is step three for DePelchin. Another thing this site does well is that it includes a Donate button throughout the Volunteer section (and throughout the site as well). Often times, your volunteers are your most loyal visitors, so giving them a quick opportunity to donate is definitely a good strategy.
Chesapeake Bay Foundation also takes a less explicit approach to the three steps of becoming a volunteer. They have the challenge of covering a wider geographical area so they’ve taken the approach of using an events calendar to display their specific opportunities. Before listing the specifics, they group their different types of opportunities by Hands-on, Outreach and Education, and Advocacy so that users can easily identify with one group. Once the user has identified which opportunities they may be interested in, Chesapeake Bay has a step three of completing an online sign-up, which is a necessary component of any great volunteer section. While your users are engaged and reading about your volunteer options, why not collect their contact information so you can begin an online relationship with them?
So, in summary, some quick rules of thumb…
Your volunteer section should guide users through the three steps of becoming a volunteer and should keep the process very simple.
Since there are essentially three steps to becoming a volunteer, your volunteer section should not include more than three pages: a landing page describing the process and what it’s like to be a volunteer, a page listing specific volunteer opportunities, and an application page or page for users to register as volunteers. There are exceptions to this rule depending on your organization, but this is a good starting point.
Consider providing a quick way for users to donate within your volunteer section.
Be sure you’re collecting your users’ contact information in your volunteer section so you can get in touch with them and stay in touch.
Have I missed anything? Are there features or content that you’ve seen on other volunteer sections or on your own that you’d like to share? If so, please do so in the comments.
Posted by: Tompkins Spann at 1:10PM EST on August 22, 2008
First, a confession. I prepared content for this blog series months ago based on the primary efforts and have been simply making tweaks as new strategies emerge. However, for this entry I'm going to scrap the initial idea for this post and focus on a brilliant new idea the Obama campaign has implemented.
Mobile messaging is hot, there's no doubt about it. However, many nonprofits are still grappling with the right strategies to use this channel, not to mention the technical hurdles (psst... check out Mobile Commons technology).
This strategy is something nonprofits should consider replicating. Here are some ideas that could be announced via text messaging:
Announce the results of a legislative vote
Announce a fundraising milestone
Announce a key-note speaker for your conference
Announce an urgent advocacy request to key super-activists
The key ingredient here is announcing something people who are already invested in your organization would want to know. Therefore it's important to take into consideration their involvement. For instance, only offer to announce the results of the above legislative vote to constituents who took action on the advocacy campaign and similarly with supporters who made a donation to help you hit that milestone.
Why do this?
Several reasons. The Obama campaign will likely add thousands of new supporters via this strategy, but that is not always the case. More importantly it provides valuable information to your key supporters, which strengthens your relationship and increases their investment in your cause. Additionally, by providing you with their cell digits you've just learned how invested they really are with your org. I mean, we don't just give out our cell numbers to anyone! So if an individual has yet to donate but provides their digits, there's a good chance they would be willing to donate or take further action in the future, and this is highly valuable information for your organization.
Resources:
MobileActive.org- excellent source for activism strategies and news
Mobile Commons- Convio technology partner with a super-cool integration using our APIs.
Today, I’m going to rate JohnMcCain.com and BarackObama.com on their interactive pathways for engagement – in other words, what can I do to get engaged online, both before and after I become a supporter.
By now, we’re all used to seeing the “Get Involved” or “Take Action” utility boxes, usually at the right of the homepage, that tell us 5 ways we can support an org, 4 ways to act now, or one really important and three kind-of-but-not-quite-so important ways to get engaged. True to the genre of advocacy sites like the International Rescue Committee and FairTax, both Obama and McCain have chosen to present our interactive options clustered neatly in groups of 4 to 8 actions at the right of their design.
First, McCain’s Online Action Center. McCain opts for 8 routes to action, prioritizing donations and email signup – yes, an eCRM best practice – above six more involved paths to involvement. While he loses some points on the inclarity of a few options ("McCainSpace?" "Cause Greater Than Self?" what the - ?), the Action Center component gets a thumbs-up because it:
prioritizes a low-cost way to get involved (email- and zip-only sign up)
advertises the breadth of interactive opportunities on the site, without overwhelming, and
persists throughout the site in the same location, providing reliable, handy routes to action.
Even better, when I take that first step, something noticeable and relevant to me happens.
My Get Involved component becomes focused – instead of a cluster of
ideas, I get a prioritized top-to-bottom list of what I should do, from
least to greatest commitment, with (brief) annotations for each item so
I know exactly what’s being asked of me. (Still, "A Cause Greater"? I
must ask: "why so cryptic?")
Best of all is the information design of this component, which becomes a stand-in for my detailed Action Center dashboard. The horizontal white squares track my progress in each of these areas, allowing me at a glance to gauge my level of impact across many of my efforts.
Is anyone actually using this Action Center to this degree? I wonder. We’ll see how this plays out as the campaign unfolds, as people get engaged, and as these engagement tools are evolved based on what’s working and what’s not.
For now, JohnMcCain.com wins a point for strong engagement pathways.
Turning to My.BarackObama.com: Though this site is definitely a leader on many interactive fronts (beautiful design, clear areas of focus, strong nav), I was disappointed overall at the devices for getting engaged.
Obama.com does employ the interactive utility box (actually a couple of them) – to some degree the whole long right column is one big action-focused device – this is one area where more is less. To get to either this,
or to this:
you have to scroll way past this:
...which asks for participation in high-commitment activities like attending an event or donating, but doesn’t give you a sense of the breadth of ways to join or get involved. (Sign Up Now is happily included, but by this point you have already bypassed – or completed – signing up in order to enter the site in the first place).
After deciding to sign up for the rather unfortunately abbreviated my.BO.com, in which I must give my first and last name in addition to email and zip, I’m excited to see exactly one personalized item – a state-specific event finder – and some sort of small utility drop-down menu that’s hidden at the upper right. Otherwise, however, there’s nothing on most of the page that indicates that BarackObama.com actually knows that I’ve already signed up. My interactive options are the same (still presented way down on the page), and I’m still encouraged to sign up everywhere I look. Is that all there is: the chance to sign up?
Of course the site offers more, and if you can find your way to My Dashboard, an eight-item interactive box along with a complex "Activity Index" scoring system tells a different story of sophisticated online engagement opportunities.
Still, what am I being asked to do with my Friends, Events, Messages, Groups, and Fundraising? My.BO.com is navigable, absolutely, and by doing some things like clicking on "Details" to learn about the scoring system or scrolling way down on the dash and clicking around to learn more about each opportunity, I’ll get there. But for such sophisticated pathways, this site is riddled with unnecessary barriers to entry that don’t give visitors a streamlined, personalized experience to grow their relationship with the campaign over time.
So, alas…we’re giving this one to McCain for clear interactive engagement pathways. Which makes it:
Obama 1 / McCain 1.
Let us know what you’d like us to evaluate next – quality of email? Blog strategy? Navigation? Overall visual design? You name it, we’ll do our best to tackle it.
Posted by: Sally Heaven at 10:19AM EST on August 20, 2008
So last week I learned about something new (to me, anyway) - Rickrolling. Basically you put a link into a webpage or email message that instead of going where the user thinks it will, it links to the Rick Astley video "Never Gonna Give You Up" on YouTube. According to Wikipedia, this has resulted in over 13 million viewings of "Never Gonna Give You Up". The current number is well over 19 million and counting.
I heard about this in the context of an NPR story about a candidate for state house in Kansas, Sean Tevis, who decided to run for Kansas State Representative. When two weeks of canvassing hadn't yielded the fundraising he needed, he made a website to help raise the money.
And what a website it is! I love the personal tone, the user-friendliness, and of course the comic strip. Yes, the comic strip.
One of the ways Tevis raised the money he needed - $26,000 in less than a week and a half, and $96,000 at the last filing deadline - was by publishing a comic strip on his site. These cartoons do a great job of explaining the campaign process and what goes on behind the scenes to the layperson. (Also, as a BSG fan, I love the Battlestar Galactica reference about halfway through the cartoons.)
Not only is the internet enabling political candidates to raise more money online than ever, I think this is a great example of how creativity and an authentic, personal message can help anyone - be it a political candidate or a nonprofit organization - to connect with people and build a real relationship. Authenticity is the key and it's much-sought these days - it's easy to tell when a message is not genuine.
So it was the mention of Rickrolling that caught my attention, but the rest of the story and checking out Sean Tevis' website for myself was the informative and illuminating part for me. What awesome creativity will we see next from the interwebs?
Posted by: Molly Brooksbank at 6:56PM EST on August 18, 2008
Those of us who work day in and day out to help organizations connect with real people sometimes have to disconnect ourselves a bit, otherwise we'd lose our sense of humor. Instead we focus on the myriad (and important) details of driving web traffic, building a housefile and improving response rates. But we all know that every now and then, you have to take a step back and remember
why you do what you do.
So in honor of this year's Nonprofit of the Year Award recipient, Operation Smile, here's a video which Kyla Shawer, SVP of Response Marketing and Development, played for us at the DMA Nonprofit Federation conference in New York last week. This video is about a global event and her Operation Smile's mission, but as Kyla pointed out, we can all be proud of the passionate work we do to change the world.
Of course there are also some very good direct-response and fundraising related reasons for Operation Smile to receive this award...
Growing their donor file 1000% since 2002
Running a major multifaceted campaign (DRTV, mail, phone and web) for the "World Journey of Smiles"
Running highly innovative direct response campaigns that serve as a model to other nonprofits
All of which means that Operation Smile has been able to grow the organization at a breathtaking pace and provide more surgeries to children in need than ever before.
Congratulations Operation Smile. Thanks for all you do to make the world a better place, and thanks for inspiring us!
P.S. There are more great videos here. And since they don't have a public blog that I'm aware of, feel free to add your own message to them in the comments. We'll make sure they see it!
Posted by: Jordan Viator at 4:30PM EST on August 18, 2008
Last week at the DMANF Conference in New York, a few members of the Convio team sat down with Ayumi Stubbs, Director of Internet Communications at the ASPCA, to discuss the organization's Facebook application success. In her video interview, Ayumi shares:
- The purpose of the Facebook application. (Even though the application accepts donations it is not purposed as a fundraising tool.)
- The functionality of the tool and what it does.
- How the ASPCA launched the application, how long the process took and the different moving parts to the project.
- The immediate response, comments and overall performance of the application.
Those of you nonprofits and activism groups interested in in getting your feet wet in the Facebook space - whether by building your own application or teaming up with an existing application like Causes - take heed to the fact that the ASPCA used a multi-channel marketing approach when launching this new effort. To ramp up the base of users, the organization reached out to its current housefile, MySpace page users and announced the application on its existing Web site.
For anyone still doubtful of the results social networking can drive in nonprofit campaigning, take mental note of the 12,822 members, 235 comments and 12% conversion rate the ASPCA experienced with users who sent a gift through the application. Even Ayumi admits this number is "amazing" and much higher than general Web site conversion!
Posted by: James Young at 12:20PM EST on August 18, 2008
My colleague and friend, Peter Genuardi, once posted on this very blog about why you shouldn’t have a Twitter strategy, and while I think even Peter would take some of that back now, I wanted to present this one proof that Twitter can work for you.
The Blood Center of Central Texas recently benefited from a “tweet-up.” What is a tweet-up, you ask? Don’t feel bad. I had to ask too. David Neff, Director of Web and Interactive Strategy American Cancer Society - Austin Corporate Office, was the force behind the tweet-up and here is how he answered my question. “You broadcast on Twitter that you wanted people to meet at the Blood Center at a certain day and time and then linking them to a sign up form so the Blood and Tissue center knew we were coming.”
The tweet-up was a success, and David has video to prove it. He has graciously allowed us to show his video here.
As you can see, the Twitter crowd was paying attention and showed up.
Now, it isn’t as easy as it seems to accomplish this. One would have to have a decent “following” in Twitter to reach enough people. That means you have to spend some time developing your profile in Twitter and amass followers. My recent post highlighting Danielle Brigida’s tips for developing a profile on Digg contains some useful advice that applies to Twitter as well.
If you have examples of Twitter success stories, feel free to share them here.
Posted by: Jordan Viator at 6:05PM EST on August 14, 2008
Mike Johnston of HJC New Media presented to a room full of eager fundraisers today at DMANF on “New Media – Me Myself and I: The Secret of using Cell Phones, Text Messages, YouTube, Personal Pages and Electronic Media to Raise Money in the Age of Google.” I have to admit up front that I was hesitant to attend the session and wasn’t sure if I’d learn anything new. Boy was I wrong.
Johnston completely blew the room away with his presentation. Instead of rambling off a list of general best practices or speaking in Web 2.0 buzzword lingo that wouldn't help conference attendees walk away with a realistic place to start for developing a new media marketing strategy, Johnston shared case study, after case study, after case study of truly unique and innovative campaigns nonprofits are running online. And what’s more, the examples he shared not only illustrated ways nonprofits are carving a presence in interactive, social media spaces, but they also showed phenomenal fundraising success. (Seriously, if you are searching for examples of new media fundraising success stories or creative inspiration for your next interactive project, check out his presentation on the DMANF conference Web site).
Here are few examples he shared that struck me as particularly creative and successful:
This was my favorite example from the entire session. An organization supporting Crohn’s and Colitis decided to hold its annual gala “virtually” online, allowing the event’s organizers to create personal fundraising pages to raise funds for the “event”. The personal fundraising proved to be fun and competitive, and each person with a page competed against the others to raise the greatest amount of funds. The result: the average funds raised per committee member was $11,129.83 and the top 3 committee fundraisers raised $109,252. Over $375,000 was raised in total.
Oxfam’s Unwrapped program allows for donors to give in a unique and unexpected way. Rather than donating a lump sum of money that has no real identity or emotional connection to what the funds signify for the organization, Oxfam donors can choose from a catalog of “gifts” that represent work Oxfam carries out through donations raised. For example, someone could purchase a virtual goat, hygiene kit or boat for the amount the item actually costs, and in turn, the donor has an understanding of how they are personally making a difference by donating. The result: in 2007, 5,753 donors gave an average of $87 each, raising a total of $497,873.
This was actually started as a contest where the organization’s constituents submitted ideas for the new campaign. Greenpeace partnered with scientists to track whales, through the use of GPS, while they migrated south through dangerous waters where the whales are hunted. Greenpeace supporters were empowered to make a difference themselves by making personal fundraising pages (are you seeing a trend here?) in support of the cause. The result: over 5,000 personal fundraising pages were created raising over $120,000.
Take a look at the rest of the examples Johnston shared in the presentation. And help me keep the list going - share your favorite or most recent new media fundraising success story here.
Posted by: James Young at 3:46PM EST on August 12, 2008
The name of the game, or at least one of its nicknames, is housefile for most non-profits. This translates into constituent records, or profiles.
Now, one could argue that the most important attribute of the profile is the email address, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but I believe that there is a ton of value in the other profile information as well.
This belief takes on even more meaning if you are a sight that adopts some social aspect, facilitating constituent to constituent communication, because nobody really enjoys talking with someone they don't know anything about and can't see anything. Seriously, not even these ladies really liked it.
With this in mind, I came across an ineresting post on ReadWriteWeb about social media sites and the strategies they use to get users to fill out their profiles. I know that these sites have some big differences from your typical non-profit site, but I think there are some lessons to be learned from these strategies. My hope is that you readers will think about these strategies and modify them to fit your site and your constituents. I would love to hear about the experience as well as any ideas/experiences you have in encouraging constituents to provide more profile information.
I've included the entire blog post from ReadWriteWeb here for your convenience.
Eight Ways to Get Users to Fill Out Their Profiles
"Hi,
my name is MrCucumber69, I have a gray blob for a face and that's all I
care to share about myself - will you be my friend?" Silly as that
sounds, this is the way users of many social web applications greet
each other. It's not very useful or inspiring.
Communication works better when you have a good idea who it is
you're talking to. How can new online services get users to describe
themselves, though?
Bellow, we discuss some of our favorite ways it's being done well.
We hope you'll share your favorite strategies in comments so we can all
learn about more ways to tackle this common problem.
LinkedIn = Boring but Effective
One of the most well known ways to get people to fill out their profiles is the way LinkedIn
does it. Users are shown a progress bar and told that their profile is
"X% completed." This is probably effective but some people tell us it
makes them feel guilty.
It's much better than nothing, but let's look at some more creative and fun solutions.
What's Your Most Common Username Elsewhere?
Personal search engine Lijit does a
great job of making it easy to associate your account with them with
all kinds of other accounts you own around the web. It's simple: they
just ask what your most common username is and then they check for
public profiles with that username on a long list of different
services. In just moments, with a handful of keystrokes, all kinds of
info about you can be gathered together.
It's
the first step new users take when they click the button to register on
the site. You can exclude certain accounts, add particular usernames
for accounts where you use a different one. It's incredibly elegant and
a great model that others would do well to emulate.
We suspect that social media ping server Gnip will make this kind of approach all the more powerful and easy for application developers to implement soon.
Once you've got usernames from these services, why not display
recent activity feeds on their profile pages? That's kind of how Jive Software's ClearSpace does it (see image on the left) and we think that looks great.
Did You Know...?
Another interesting approach is to offer users information about the
activities of other people in aggregate and use this as an opportunity
to prompt them to provide more information about themselves.
Social recommendation service (and, disclosure, RWW sponsor) Strands, for example, presents customers of Spanish bank BBVA
with messages like the following: "Grocery spending: A married person
spends 103% more on groceries than a single person. By the way, are you
married or single?" That's interesting to know and would motivate me to answer the question with a click.
How else could this be done? Check out categorized Twitter directory Twellow,
where Twitter user bios are categorized by interest and occupation.
It's a great way to find like minded Twitter users, but imagine if
Twello (or another app) said something like this to users: "We see that
you are an accountant - did you know that Twitter users who are
accountants tend to post more photos to Flickr than Doctors do, but fewer
than people in Defense related fields do? If you'd like to tell us what
your Flickr username is, we'll connect it to your Twitter account here."
Maybe it could be done more elegantly than that, but you get the idea.
Similarly, eco-credit card company Brighter Planet tracks your personal ecological impact but starts each user out with the median numbers for people in their geographic area and works backwards.
Messages like the following greet users when they login to their
Brighter Planet account: "You live with one other person and you use
15% green electricity. Improve your profile by telling us about the car
you drive and your flights."
You Look Like George Bush
Brand spanking new social news site SocialMedian
assigns a big picture of a famous (or infamous) person as each new
user's avatar. My default profile was graced with a photo of Bill
Gates, but other people start out with George Bush - something that
must get a lot of new users to click the "change my photo" link. It's a
witty idea and we wonder just how far it could be taken.
"You are 15 years old, clean up after circus animals for a living
and love Britney Spears videos on TV. (unverified - not true? click
here to edit your profile.)" Oh yeah, that could work.
I Heard About You On Twitter
If you've used red hot social lifestreaming app type thing FriendFeed,
you've probably wondered why, with everything the service knows about
you, there's no place to see bio info about other users on their
FriendFeed user pages. Enter Hao Chen's FriendFeed Profile
script for Greasemonkey. Every time you visit a the user page on
FriendFeed of someone who has associated their Twitter account with
their FF account (everyone) - this script grabs their bio info from
Twitter and slaps it up on their FriendFeed page. It's fantastic!
Why not let users of your app opt-in to populate their profiles with publicly available profiles from other accounts? (I'm here on FriendFeed by the way, if you'd like me to feed you like a friend.)
Still More Ways to Do It
OpenID accounts usually have some
profile info associated with them. Some apps pull that info. The OpenID
community is working hard, if slow, on "attribute exchange" - a
protocol that would flesh this out all the more.
MyBlogLog is a widely used social
network for blog readers where you can find headshots of millions of
people, their demographic info, interests and many associated accounts
from other social networks. Have you tried out the BlogJuice bookmarklet to see the job titles or your blog's most recent visitors, via LinkedIn? It's SO much fun!
If you don't mind renting users from Facebook, the new Facebook Connect login and profile system
looks pretty hot too. For some reason people don't appear to put as
much fake info about themselves into Facebook as they do other places -
it's a rich source of user profile data and comes with the added
comfort of extensive privacy controls. The downside is that putting
this much control in the hands of Facebook is pretty creepy.
Conclusion: It Doesn't Have to Be Hard Anymore
There's
not a whole lot of excuses any more for asking users of your brand new
website to fill in a whole lot of information about themselves. Nor is
there for having super anemic user profiles, which leave new users
totally uninspired to connect with each other. You need users
connecting as quickly as possible in your apps and rich profiles really
help.
What other ways have you seen apps solve this problem? We're sure
there are many more creative examples and we'd love to find out about
them!
The handsome devil at the top of this post is Flickr user thomas pix.
"Hi,
my name is MrCucumber69, I have a gray blob for a face and that's all I
care to share about myself - will you be my friend?" Silly as that
sounds, this is the way users of many social web applications greet
each other. It's not very useful or inspiring. 
One of the most well known ways to get people to fill out their profiles is the way 
It's
the first step new users take when they click the button to register on
the site. You can exclude certain accounts, add particular usernames
for accounts where you use a different one. It's incredibly elegant and
a great model that others would do well to emulate.
If you've used red hot social lifestreaming app type thing 
