Navigation Bar:
Introduction
User contribution
Ratings and reviews
Tagging
Editorial control
User-generated content
Social networking
Implications
While everything discussed so far is user-generated content, many organizations are going beyond user reviews or tagging and are empowering users to contribute in far more significant ways. Wikipedia opened new doors by encouraging users to edit any page, and commercial sites are now experimenting with this new type of customer relationship. What happens when you allow users to be active co-authors of your site, and thus your brand?
Amazon now has wiki functionality on product pages because it recognizes that its customers are knowledgeable and passionate. Encouraging them to contribute product information makes them more engaged customers and simultaneously improves the site experience for everyone else. These collaborative publishing environments are largely self-policing, so errors and extreme viewpoints are filtered out by the collective intelligence.
Marvel has also embraced wikis to the extent that anyone can edit the biographies of its famous comic book heroes. Users want to engage with your brand and contribute in positive ways. Who would say no to that?
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What content would your customers contribute? You might not want to give them the ability to edit your product descriptions, but what about other information? Perhaps they would provide content that would help other users find or select the right product or service. Or maybe they would write instructions for using your products or services, or tips and tricks that would benefit everyone. They might even share content that would greatly improve your Help section. You might decide it’s too soon to allow users to contribute in such significant ways; but at least you’ve asked the question and considered the possibilities.
Next: Social networking
