socialmedian: Eight Ways to Get Users to Fill Out Their Profiles

User-submitted headlines for this story

Clips

Eight Ways to Get Users to Fill Out Their Profiles

Source: ReadWriteWeb

Aug 02, 2008

Summary

"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 great each other. It's not very useful or inspiring.

Communication is a lot more useful 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 g

...Read the full article

Comments (14)

Thomaspower,

Aug 02, 2008

Cool

Doncooke,

Aug 02, 2008

engagement = relationship = value

Personally I find it very difficult to engage with anyone content to withhold a picture of what they look like in their profile - in the same way I bin mailings telling me that I have been selected as a lottery winner or have a distant and wealthy relative in North Africa.

The value that a connection with another person on the planet amounts to the amount of trust and shared understanding between you - so giving of yourself is vital in any dialogue.

Withholding contact has never been particularly attractive or community building - even before the advent of the computer, the internet - or for that matter 'social media'.

Personally speaking, the '% complete format' for profile assembly is a great device and one I am sure will become the standard in years to come.

Thewavingcat,

Aug 02, 2008

check out http://www.iminlikewithyou.com. they have the most playful (and effective) way to get folks to fill out their profiles. they collect your info in little bits & pieces, you won't ever find a long, cumbersome profile form.

Mokargas,

Aug 02, 2008

Excellent post. It's absolutely necessary to put a face on yourself online if you wish to engage as you would IRL.

Jasongoldberg,

Aug 02, 2008

We purposely went for this with socialmedian, the thought being that news sites are a dime a doze, for this to take off it's really about the right mix of news features and community. In the end, the community will decide whether they want to stay here or not.

Amsall,

Aug 02, 2008

I very rarely accept connection requests from pictureless people. What do they have to hide?

Amsall,

Aug 02, 2008

I very rarely accept connection requests from pictureless people. What do they have to hide?

Amsall,

Aug 02, 2008

I very rarely accept connection requests from pictureless people. What do they have to hide?

Amsall,

Aug 02, 2008

I very rarely accept connection requests from pictureless people. What do they have to hide?

Jasongoldberg,

Aug 03, 2008

Looks like we have a bug with repeat comments there Amsall. We'll look into it. On this topic, I'm wondering what people think of how we use the Google Social Graph API to help auto-populate your socialmedian profile? My hunch is that it gets rid the big barrier of previously having to re-recreate the profile from scratch each time.

Weblaunches,

Aug 03, 2008

Good ideas of ways to get users to fill out their profiles

Nigelwalsh,

Aug 04, 2008

like the idea - the % complete is great in LinkedIN, but also makes you stop once you are at 100%... maybe there is a way for others to rate whats good and bad about others profiles and clip it to your own...

Eyebee,

Aug 11, 2008

I really like social|median so far. I'd participate a whole lot more, if I didn't have to earn some money during the day as well!

I've got this cute little avatar that a friend made me in his spare time a few years ago, and I tend to use that across the networks. It's a reasonable likeness. I've no issue with folks knowing basic stuff about me anyway.