How to Make Better Use of Your Groups
The good thing about groups is they bring people with like interests together, and they make it easier to find stories that relate to those interest.
The not so good thing about groups is the limited exposure stories get when they are only posted to a group, because only those in the group get the read the stories. In some cases that may be fine, in that the author is only trying to reach the members of the group.
But how often is that the case? Usually an author wants to reach as many readers as possible. However, of the 93 groups on the NewsTalkers site, the average membership is only 23 people. Even the 50 largest of those groups has an average membership of only 41, which does not allow for a lot of exposure, especially considering some of those members may not be active.
The solution to the problem of exposure is to post your article to the NT Main Forum as well as to a particular group or groups. However, doing that has the result in dividing the conversation, and not allowing the opinions of commenting members to be shared by all those interested in the topic. Which brings me to how to make better use of your groups.
As you can see, I have posted this article in both the NewsTalkers Community group and in the Main Forum, yet there is only one discussion thread. To do this is a very simple process, which can be done for any article or seed you want to post in a group or groups as well as the general membership.
First you post the article in the Main Forum under one of the main topics or their sub-topics, such as News and Politics, Health, Science & Tech., etc. (roll over a main topic to see the sub-topics). Then you copy and paste your entire article to what ever group or groups where you want the article to also appear.
BUT,.. this is where there is a big difference. As you can see from the bottom of this article as posted in the NewsTalkers Community group, there is no discussion thread for the group posting. Instead, the reader there is given a link taking them to the discussion in the main forum. I also post the re-direct as the first comment on the group thread before closing the thread, I know its redundant, but I do it anyway. I have the re-direct comment in a MS Word save file which is pinned to my taskbar so I dont have to type it every time, (being lazy has its virtues). If a group member wants to start a discussion with only the other group members, that can be done on the group comment wall.
This process only takes a minute or two, and will not only increase the exposure to your articles, it will help increase the exposure to your groups. To help in that respect, I post a comment on the discussion thread with link to the group, or groups, encouraging people to join.
As it stands right now the use of our groups has been fairly moderate. Of the 93 groups we have, only 66 have seen any activity In the last six months and ony 53 of those have seen any activity in the past three months. I believe if theprocedureoutlined here is used, we willsee an increase in activity on the comment threads and and increase in group memberships, and group activity.
This suggestion is now open for questions, comments,criticism, and/or further suggestions.
This article is sponsored by the NewsTalkers Community group.
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Groups can be fun
Really good article Jerry!
You mist be in a real stew-- I see you retired your prior screen-name
LOL-- you have to change your avatar picture as well as your screen name!
(But not to worry, few people will read my comment. Most people just like to spout off without reading the original article, or even the comments.)
But I do love your name... 8^)
Good idea, Jerry!
Yeah they can, and often are.
They also can be a place to have serious discussions about serious topics, with a minimum of vitriol from not-so-serious trolls.
Thanks Perrie.
I told you 2-3 months ago I was going to post this article, finally got it off my 'To-Do' list.
Thanks Marsha,
I've been doing this since I've been on NT, although I've refined the process over time. Sure beats the 'scatter-posting' methods used on most other sites.
I'm hoping we get some suggestions that will make the technique even more effective.
Dang if she didn't go back to the same stubborn formerstew!
To the top
Thanks Perrie, you're 'tops' in my book!
This is a reply posted by Buzz of the Orient August 16, 2014 on another thread I allowed to go 'off topic'. It was moved here to bring the discussion 'under one, more appropriate roof'.
Buzz said;
I had thought anyone could comment on an article that was posted to a group but I see that I was wrong. You're right in that my suggestion isn't practical, but I don't see the purpose of posting the article on the group not permitting comments and directing everyone to the front page duplication where they can comment because only group members would notice it. Therefore I can see posting an article on the front page and providing a notice to all comers that articles concerning the group's topic can be found on the group page, and provide a link to the page. Then if they are interested they will join the group and hopefully become active in it. However, I would not be so presumptuous as to make the statement that the front page article is sponsored by the group.
That method will not add to the article content of the group but it can be a "come hither" for recruiting new members. When the NV Refugee group was formed, a couple of times I posted a welcome message telling our new NT members to check out the groups to see if there are any that interest them that they can join. I, too, believe that generally the groups are under-used. On my two groups I have posted the vast majority of articles. I agree with your method of telling your group members of new article postings, but not everyone has set their settings to allow receipt of emails, even messages from groups. I did suggest to Perrie that I would like to see automatic "new article" messages to be sent to every group member.
A.Mac and I both have felt that because not enough people frequent their groups, that usually it pays to post on the front page rather than in the group. But I am going to start providing a standard message, as you do, to guide people to the relevant group when posting an article on the front page.
My response;
Posting articles in a group, then directing comments to the main forum keeps the main discussion in one place so more people will see each comment, hopefully generating more interest in the discussion and keeping it going longer. I disagree that "only group members will notice", and don't understand why you think that. If a person has a interest in child abuse for instance, and is not aware there is a Child Abuse & Abductions group addressing that issue, there is a reasonable chance that person will find the article in the main forum, with the link to the group, and as you say, will hopefully join the group.
If a person is already a member of a group, and does not wish to join in the main forum discussion, they can always place a comment on the group 'Comment Wall'.
That comment refers to another bad idea of mine. Instead of simply providing a link to the
Classic Cinema group in the tread for a Robin Williams article I posted, I said the article was "sponsored" by the Classic Cinema group. (?!) Why? I have no idea, temporary lapse of sanity I suppose.
Anyway, to continue;
I do that now with every new member that comes in. I also proved a link to the NewsTalkers Community group (where this article is linked, btw) and I recently started to also provide links to my Good News Club and Stephi Cantley's Cat-Adorers group, just to help get new members started in some groups. As of this posting I have also added a link to all the NT groups in that welcome message.
IMO, this a major problem. I have every one of my NT eMail Alerts activated, that way I have a better idea of what's going on around the site. It's no big deal to click "Delete" if you get a notice regarding something you have no interest in.
I think there should be an automatic notice sent to every member regarding every article that is posted on the site. IMO, if that were done it would go a long way to improve member retention. People join, read, maybe post an article or two, then lose interest. If they get a couple of emails notifying them about some things they are interested in it will help keep them active. If they don't want to continue to get the emails, like other sites we all occasionally sign on to, they can always got to their home page and modify or completely stop the emails.
A.Mac and I both have felt that because not enough people frequent their groups, that usually it pays to post on the front page rather than in the group. But I am going to start providing a standard message, as you do, to guide people to the relevant group when posting an article on the front page.
That's great, I hope others reading this will start doing the same.
You're probably right, I think I may have been engaging in a little 'Ferguson PD Overkill' with that idea.
But I still think at least having a mandatorynotificationwhen articles are posted to groups people belong to, will have a positiveeffectregardingmemberretention.
Yes, I forgot about this. (Sorry about that). Just a couple of points;
The article posted on the group page is not really a "dummy" article. Comments and discussions , asmentioned in the 'Better Use of Your Groups' article, can always be started and maintained on the group 'Comment Wall' if the reader does not want to go to the main forum. Specialized groups such as your 'Classic Cinema" and Mac's 'NTPhotography' groups will probably not do as well in the main forum discussion-wise, but that's because of the nature of the material.
Ithinkthat is likely the main difference in our thinking on that point. Your groups aremuchmorespecialized, whereas the groups I maintain, are of interest to awider audience.
Groups addressing topics such as police brutality, child abuse, violence against women, and the Supreme Court Watch group, feature much more 'main stream' news, so I don't think readers find being referred to the main forum discussion as a problem. Actually I think they would prefer to be involved in one larger, comprehensive discussion.
Thepurposeof referring the reader to the main forum tojoin in the discussion, is to generate a more lively and diverse discussion, engaging other readers that are not a member of the group.
I like your idea of using the main forum toencouragepeople to go the the group page and look at whatis posted there. Right now I'm just posting, "T hisarticleoriginatedin the [link] group.Membership is open, please join and help us find more articles like this ". I'm going to amend that comment to incorporate your suggestion.
I'm also going to continue to send a message regarding a "New Discussion", we'll have to keepencouraging Perrie to auto-activate the 'new activity in groups' feature. Meanwhile I'm going to suggest to all my group members that they set that feature manually.
Thanks for engaging me in this discussion Buzz, your comments and suggestions have been very helpful and constructive.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. We're having this discussion because we have a shared interest in the use, or lack thereof, of the NT groups.
My comment was prefaced by, "Ithinkthat is likely the main difference in our thinking on that point.", so why is the difference in the nature of our groups not important to the discussion?
I understand, but the crux of our difference is whether the focus if the discussion will be in the main forum or in the group page. I maintain the difference lies in the nature of the group.
The "mandatory", does not refer to any required action by the member otherthantoclick on the 'delete' button. Perhaps the term "automatic" would have been better.
I find it much easier to check my email several times a day. That way I don't have to go to each group to find out if anything is going on. No comments = no alerts = no reason to visit the group. This method allows me to belong to 26 groups, 8 of which are my own.
If there is a comment the alert tells me who made it, and shows a portion of the comment. If I have no interest in that particular discussion, I simply delete the alert.
However, if the comment is in response to a comment I made, the alert insures I won't miss it, and I'll be able to get back to the thread so not to appear to beignoringthe comment.
It doesn't work that way Buzz. There is no way to set an alert to every comment made on the site. You can only set alerts to comments made in your own groups or those you are a member of, or to notify you of comments made in a discussion you have participated in. Becausethe alert gives you an excerpt of the comment, you can just delete comments posted in a thread you have not been involved in.
My problem these days is one you're not having, and that is that I'm not getting the notifications I should be getting. With Perrie's advice I have opened up new email accounts and rejoined NT twice already. Perrie said not to delete my former alter egos because that would wipe out all my contributions, so I sit with 3 different ones. Now it's started to screw up again and I'm simply not going to keep opening new email accounts, so I'm not sure what to do. Perrie says that Ning is basing its procedure on I/P which is why I'm having trouble, but unfortunately I have no solution.
"It doesn't work that way Buzz."
Actually you're right. I just realized that I can stop the notifications on any discussion when I decide to end it. With all your groups and activity you must have a hell of a lot of time to spend on the computer.
It depends on what you consider "a hell of a lot of time". I'm retired and able to spend considerable time at my 'puter, which if I were working would probably translate to a lot of time.
But because I only have to do two of the "shower, shit, shine and shave" routine anymore, and no longer have to spend 10-12 hours a day dealingwithclients and unco-operative lenders, yeah, I have more time than most to spend sitting in front of my 'puter looking un-shiney and unshaven and carry on discussions with people in China.
I see JR has recently re-joined NT also, is he having the same problem?
"basing it's procedure on I/P", I don't know what that means.
Just a note;
I see you (Buzz) and Raven are putting the comments you're responding to within quote (") marks. I'm assuming that's because your not getting a Toolbar at the top of your comment boxes. I know other people have that problem, that's why my assumption.
If that's the case you should be able to italicize the quote by highlighting the text and hitting [Control+I] You should also be able to bold any text by using the same procedure using [Control+B]. You can reverse the process with the same procedure.
Italicized quotes will more clearly distinguish between the comment you're responding to and your response.
Well, I'm still teaching so my time is limited (although at irregular hours), but at my age I have get up every couple of hours or so to pee, and to get sleepy enough to go back to bed I spend a little time on the computer, which is why sometimes it seems I'm up for 24 hours a day. .
You said "...carry on discussions with people in China." Anyone other that me?
You're right about not getting the toolbar. Thanks for the advice, I'll try it.
For example.
and another.
Doesn't work for me. When I press control "I" and control "B" they open up a bookmarks window on the left of my screen.
I don't either, ask her.
I'm far from a computer guru, so I don't know why Control + I or B doesn't work on your 'puter. I use Google Chrome and Microsoft Word and it works for on both of those systems.
I was been playing with settings on my control panel at one time and may have clicked on something that toggles that feature.
Google has been blocked here in China.
Probably caused by an enlarged prostate (common as we get older), Better get it checked out, there are various reasons for the prostate enlarging, some of them not so good.
My Doc prescribedTamsulosin, a generic for Flowmax, it helps a lot.
I remember you saying that once before. But I'm not in Chrome when I'm in 'Word'. Word only works on Explorer. They're completelyseparate, I can't even paste text from Chrome to Word unless I"Scrub" the Chrome formatt on my "Sticky Notes" app first.
If I forget to do that, and try to paste text directly fromChrometo Word,Word goes all bug-fuck and shuts down on me.
I'm sure there's a way to tinker with your settings to allow you to toggle italics and bold from your keyboard. I'm not working with anything real fancy here, I just have Explorer 7 running on a 3 year old HP Pavillion "All-in-One" desktop.
Tinkerwith your Explorer settings and let me know how you make out. That is if you don't blow up your 'puter in the process.