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Private messaging users
Was trying to private message amy to ask her about her "due date", but I did not notice a way for users to privately message each other - why not? I am sure that you folks have thought about the pros and cons many times before, but it might be very useful in terms of building up relationships between users.
So why have relationships between users? Cause I think the key power of conversational marketing from a company really comes through when a group of advocates are visibly visible. And ultimately, groups starts off one relationship at a time, with certain people being very active in contacting other members with similar interests, etc.
That way, you can also identify who amongst your userbase are more likely to be the ones who are going to have the highest potential of forming these groups.
I believe this type of potential "group builders" is different from a user who types in many comments and questions. Those might just be power users with a lot of power/suggestions, but they might not be particularly social.
In a platform where people have the ability to privately message each other., you start see who are the potential "group builders". At some stage, targeting these people will be fantastic for kickstarting various groups.
It becomes even more interesting when your facebook app encourages and facilitates me in terms of bringing my friends into the conversation... many ways of doing so, but the key thing here is bringing FB friends into the conversation in your site itself.
Ok, I am going all over the place now from a single feature thought.... sorry sorry! End of the day, it is all about identifying "group builders", and giving them the tools to build these groups of advocates! That is what conversational marketing can be ya? :)
So why have relationships between users? Cause I think the key power of conversational marketing from a company really comes through when a group of advocates are visibly visible. And ultimately, groups starts off one relationship at a time, with certain people being very active in contacting other members with similar interests, etc.
That way, you can also identify who amongst your userbase are more likely to be the ones who are going to have the highest potential of forming these groups.
I believe this type of potential "group builders" is different from a user who types in many comments and questions. Those might just be power users with a lot of power/suggestions, but they might not be particularly social.
In a platform where people have the ability to privately message each other., you start see who are the potential "group builders". At some stage, targeting these people will be fantastic for kickstarting various groups.
It becomes even more interesting when your facebook app encourages and facilitates me in terms of bringing my friends into the conversation... many ways of doing so, but the key thing here is bringing FB friends into the conversation in your site itself.
Ok, I am going all over the place now from a single feature thought.... sorry sorry! End of the day, it is all about identifying "group builders", and giving them the tools to build these groups of advocates! That is what conversational marketing can be ya? :)
I’m thinking of how to really let the power of conversational marketing shine through!
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We're thinking hard about private messaging. It obviously has value -- as does publicly conversing. And you bring up some very good points about group builders and their special value in any community. We're definitely considering the best ways to service all the various needs.
And, btw, you can "private message" me at amy [at] getsatisfaction [dot] com.
I’m due 12/6/07.
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Inappropriate?We're thinking hard about private messaging. It obviously has value -- as does publicly conversing. And you bring up some very good points about group builders and their special value in any community. We're definitely considering the best ways to service all the various needs.
And, btw, you can "private message" me at amy [at] getsatisfaction [dot] com.
I’m due 12/6/07.
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Inappropriate?Hi Amy. Sorry have not been around for a while. I agree with OP, it would be great to private message each other on GS.
The way I recommend it to be done is for one user to add another user as a contact. If the other user excepts the contact then you have a hand shake and that will alow private messaging.
I have firends from Twitter who I just added as contacts but I cannot private message them on GS.
Looking forward to this ability!
Thank you,
Igor
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Inappropriate?I'll weigh in with my opinion, although it might not be liked by some. We'll probably have lots of talks about this in the office while we design the public/private split in the system.
I don't want getsatisfaction.com to become just another general communications channel. I think by always remembering to keep things in the "this is a customer support community" light we can focus our effort in maximizing the quality of the community rather than producing a general communication tools ala email or IM.
Private messaging will certainly play a part in our system, since we've seen time and again the need to be able to communicate confidential or private information from customer to company. I'm all for that, but in the context of customer to customer communications, i think the benefit quickly fades. Part of the reason people get account fatigue, IMO, is because there is so much overlap between services.
It also opens up a whole bunch of privacy and moderation issues. Dealing w/ public spam is a lot easier than with private spam. We would have to clearly define our boundaries and where Get Satisfaction can affect a private inbox to improve experience. We would have to have a blocking system, and the friending system like you describe Igor.
I would much rather punt. There are any number of better general communication mediums that we could leverage. Let people opt in to receive private messages by having them expose their twitter info, or find some other way that people can start private conversations away from satisfaction in email, or on pownce, or IRC, or IM, or Seesmic, or Facebook. All of these i think do a great job with private communications, and we would just be playing catch up.
There isn't really much value to us as a company with a private conversation (well, not compared to the value of a public conversation), and I think it would stand to do more harm than good to the system for the reasons I describe above. Like mingyeow said above said above private messaging can help to build relationships, but I think that the actual relationship bulding power of private messaging is miniscule when compared to a community experience.
-Scott
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This is one of the best points
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I absolutely agree. You know, I don't see why people need to use stuff at several places. It would just make it to another place to look for messages. The jungle crows, the message crowd gets overwhelmed.
If you need to talk to a person privatly, check the profile for social network service contacts. You can "private" outside - everywhere -
Inappropriate?Scott, I as an experienced Social Media marketer follow what you saying and agree with almost all your points. But in the age of social media agrregation it would serve the community a benifit to provide this ability.
Maybe not today due to the fact the system has to be built and expanded, but one day it should be done.
You really do not want to be telling a customer, "Hey send me a Tweet!"
I’m confident
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this is one of the best points
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Inappropriate?We certainly want to avoid the situation you describe Igor. Or rather, we want to get away from that situation since that is how things currently are :). Like I said before, I think the private channel is important between company and customer.
I’m thankful for the input
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Inappropriate?The only use I have for private messaging here, so far, is to report fake or incorrectly located (wrong company) items. I'd love to see a report functionality first, but I don't know if there's a thread on that.4 Comments Add a comment
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isnt that gray "Inappropriate?" link exactly what you mean ?
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We need to add the inappropriate link to more than just topics and replies. I'll bring it up tomorrow during our morning standup meeting, I'll see if we can get it on the schedule for the near term,
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No, Christian, it's not. Let's say I create a fake product under "Brightkite" called "second life" because I wanted to make an association in my post with second life. (using a real example here, this fake item exists). I can't report that the item is fake and that the user MEANT to associate with Linden Labs' Second Life. I have to e-mail eric to get it fixed, which is silly when a report button could let a random active admin take care of it.
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ok got it. and scott, how did you moved the reply to a comment :) your god ?
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