Mixx: The Ultimate Challenge
My fellow Mixxers and SuperMixxers, I come before you with a new challenge – this time directed at Mixx itself!
As some of you are aware, we have focused some energy in working against those who have previously abused the system. It was a two stage campaign – reactive and proactive.
It is now time to begin being proactive.
Mixx, over the last year, has been growing very steadily, gaining new users every day. We’ve always been a tight community, what with The Mixxing Bowl and individual interactions we’ve had with each other. It’s time to extend that community feeling outward and welcome the newer users.
The key goal here is to continue helping Mixx to grow, and so our goal for The Ultimate Challenge is two-fold:
1. Help Mixx retain our new fellow Mixxers coming into the community
2. Get more quality submissions hitting the popular page
The question is, “How do we do this?”
Let’s take a look at what we can do to help accomplish this ultimate challenge.
Welcoming and Retaining our New Mixxers
Jump on the CNN Submissions
Many of you have noticed, as have I that submissions made by CNN Reader will often have numerous comments made by new users. These new Mixxers, more often than not, have come in from CNN.com and registered to make a comment. Some of these new faces may just want to have their say on the issue at hand – but some of them could also be potential new Mixxers! My recommendation is to jump on the CNN bandwagon – and follow CNN User. If you see a submission that has a lot of new commentators, then jump on it! Wish ‘em a warm welcome to Mixx!
See a new user? Roll out the welcome mat!
Quite often we get so caught up in our own little circle of friends at Mixx (my hand is up – I am guilty of this too!) that it’s very easy to miss new users popping into the site. Some of them fly “under the radar” for a little while; which is why we started doing the User Focus segment of Social Blend. So, keep your eye out for newbies, and check out what they’re submitting. If they’re submitting great content, drop them a line! Roll out the welcome mat for them! More often than not, people will keep coming back to sites where they’re receiving the most positive interaction.
Go ahead and follow them!
If you spot a new user submitting great content, go ahead and follow them. It’s easy to become reluctant to follow people because it can become overwhelming; so no-one is saying to stop being selective (if you are so) about following new users. Just keep an eye out for them, and if you like what they’re posting, go ahead and click that follow link.
Invite them to the Mixxing Bowl
The Mixxing Bowl has become such an integral part of my Mixx experience, that if I ever hear from a new user, I cannot help but tell them about it! As a matter of fact, some users who jumped into the Mixxing Bowl forums have found a whole new level of experience with Mixx and it’s helped them to keep coming back to the site. So, if you have any interaction with a new Mixxer, go ahead and mention the Mixxing Bowl to them – you never know, you could be helping to foster a new solid contributor to the whole Mixx experience!
More Quality Submissions!
Don’t stop what you’re doing!
A lot of the power users and SuperMixxers checking this out already submit content on a regular basis. So keep at it – because we love your stuff! The idea here is to increase the amount of quality submissions being made to Mixx.
But what about people who complain about traffic?
Tell them to come back, if you speak to them. To get Mixx generating more traffic, we need more quality submits, by more users. So the more the merrier! The traffic will come in time, but we need to start somewhere.
Submit more.
No-one’s asking you to give up your livelihoods and submit to Mixx 24/7. But everyone could boost their submissions a little bit. I’m not talking about clogging up the upcoming sections of the site by any means; but let’s say for example, that you submit two things to Mixx in a day. Bump it up to four and see how things pan out. Do you only submit every so often? Try submitting once a day and see how it goes.
Where am I going to find stuff to submit?
There are so many sources online that it can be, quite often, a little overwhelming to choose something to submit. There are some great resources that you can use. One place, for example, is PopURLs.com. PopURLs aggregates all the popular stories from a wide range of social media sites, including Digg, Reddit, and Fark and so on. There is so much there to choose from. The basic idea is that if something hits the front page at Reddit (as an example), there’s a good chance it will probably be received positively at Mixx as well. Also, check out another article I wrote called Mixxing 102: How to become a SuperMixxer – while the title is clearly aimed at those yet to become SuperMixxers, there’s a whole load of handy tips and suggestions for making submissions – most notably, where to get them from.
Sent a funny or interesting link to someone over IM?
Submit it to Mixx! Seriously…I’ve mentioned this to numerous friends online before. They’ll send me a link to something they’ve enjoyed or thought I might like; but unfortunately that’s only how far that interaction goes. If you liked something well enough to share it with a bud, share it with everyone else by submitting it to Mixx!
Share, Share, Share!
People, for some reason, are very reluctant to share their submissions. While it’s understandable with some sites (such as Digg and their shouts) have had negative issues with share functions; at Mixx, their e-mail share function seems to work very well with the site. I share a lot of the submissions I make, but usually my sharing is based upon thoughts like, “Who might be interested in this?” Don’t be scared to share your stuff – especially if it’s a submission that you feel strongly about.
Share someone else’s submission
I challenge you to share one submission a day – a post that was made by someone other than yourself! This kind of action will clearly help Mixx’s development. You may have found something interesting on the site – but it could well be a situation where if the post is not shared, it might not hit the popular page. So, share it. I dare you to give it a shot. I do it as much as I can. You should too.
Power to the Mixx
We have fought spammers on a reactive front, and have been winning that battle. Now it is time to focus on the more positive front, and help Mixx become bigger and better.
It starts with us. We’re the Mixx community, and we can do this.
I challenge you to take on The Ultimate Challenge.
Great idea, I already make some of the things listed above… Count me in!
I linked to this in the message box on the main page of Mixx. It’s fantastic.
While joining MixxingBowl has been in my plans for a long time, follwoing CNNReader looks of no use to me. I mean, ok, you are right regarding the “We should welcome new users to the site” but what’s the point of following…CNN? To my understanding Mixx is a tool that helps you find the best out of CNN without having to go through all its stories. Following CNNReader is like cancelling Mixx, isn’t it?
Aug 29th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
[…] over at the Mixxing Bowl wrote an excellent blog post about being a proactive Mixxer. He gives great tips about how to bring your best to the community as well as how to help Mixx grow into an even more […]