How do you keep your audience engaged in your online content? It isn’t something that just happens, bloggers in particular employ strategies to try maintain a loyal readership. As the use of the internet has risen within our society, so has the amount of online communities available on the internet, some of which have become very familiar and some which you may of never heard of. I will be looking at 3 online communities which appear very successful in engaging an audience to become involved or sign up to their site.
As you may have guessed from the title, this site is primarily targeted at Students. All the content on the site is based around the age range of 18-25 and focuses on the ‘typical’ student life.
Mag
The ‘Mag’ section, includes the sub-sections; sex and relationships and campus, which use humour and relevant topics encouraging students to engage with the content. i.e. ’13 ways to spice up your lecture without getting arrested’ or ‘9 things there really should be an emoji for by now.’ Humour on sites is a key way to hold the reader’s attention, people are more likely to read on if they find the article personally funny.
Humour by Wiggy licensed under Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
Jobs
The job section within Student Beans is a brilliant strategy for audience engagement, most people want to benefit from online communities. This rewards readers, jobs are advertised on the site which people can apply for, searching by location, job type and sector gives many opportunities for anyone to find a job.
2. Netmums
Netmums is a site created for mums to engage in conversation with other mums, Netmums attempt to ‘offer support and guidance for those times when it’s difficult to cope with the demands of family life.’ Described as an online parenting organisation it’s targeted at primarily mothers or mothers-to-be.
It also allows mums to chat to other mums and get advice on their children, or arrange meet ups and play dates. By allowing users to communicate with other users, it helps an audience to engage in the site, it gives an opportunity to exchange information, so that users of a particular site can benefit from the site, by enhancing their knowledge of particular subjects; from parenting advice to relationship advice, etc. Any sites can use forums/chartrooms or panels, to allow users to discuss particular problems or issues.
3. Trip Advisor
Trip Advisor is a very popular online community, if people are wanting to go on holiday or for a short break away somewhere, they can use Trip Advisor. They can look at anything from, previous reviews of previous guests and see how they rated the hotel or other forms of accommodation.
This site allows people to review and talk about their personal experience on holiday, and rate it out of 5 , anyone is allowed to state their opinion and every opinion is valued on Trip Advisor. This is a good strategy for any website to use, allowing someone to speak their mind, will make them more comfortable. There is nothing worse than being restricted online and not having the freedom to speak your mind. As shown below Trip Advisor allows anyone to speak their mind.
Obviously there are many more ways than just 3, in which to engage an audience with online content .These are just a few which appear to be effective in online communities.
Everything about Media 