If you have a writer account at Crowd Content, you can now earn Coins for participating in the comments section of our blog. It’s all part of our new commenting platform that rewards community members who help spark, and maintain, discussion on our blog.
We’re calling it Crowd Content Community, an easy-to-use commenting platform with built-in gaming elements that encourage and reward positive community-building behavior.
The first gaming elements were released this week in the form of Awards and Coins.
What Are Awards?
Awards are achievements you earn as you participate in the Community. We’ve introduced a collection of Awards representing various activities and outcomes that surface in a typical blog community. As you participate and make progress in these Award categories, you reach Milestones.
It’s a simple system, but there are some formulas working “under the hood” that help us reward high-quality contributions more heavily.
In other words, not all Awards are based on your activity alone. Some Awards represent positive outcomes that your activity has created.
For example, leave a comment, and you’ll move closer to your next “Comment Count” Milestone. Leave a comment that others Reply to or Vote on, and you’ll also progress in outcome-focused Milestones like “Reactions Received” or “Replies Received”.
These outcome-focused Awards represent the behaviors, or strings of behaviors, that are likely to grow a community and help it thrive. Because of this, outcome-focused Milestones and Awards tend to be weighted more heavily when it comes to the number of Coins you earn for progressing through them.
The more you can get others involved, the more you’ll be rewarded.
What Are Coins?
Virtual currency, “Coins” can be redeemed for real-world rewards, like cash in your Writer Account.
You earn Coins as you achieve Awards and Milestones. You also earn Coins as you increase your Rank (A.K.A. your overall status or “level”). You can view progress towards your next Rank by hovering over the gold crown.
In future updates, we plan to add a Rewards Store where you can redeem Coins for rewards other than cash. At this stage of beta, however, you can redeem Coins for cash in your Writer Account (view “How It Works” in the Community tab of your Writer Account to learn more about redeeming coins).
The way Coins are redeemed and valued is likely to change in the future. This is just a starting point. The platform is in beta, so you should expect it to grow and change as we learn what works and what doesn’t. Our goal is to create a balanced system that is rewarding and sustainable.
How Can I Maximize the Number of Coins I Earn?
As we’ve hinted at already, users who are able to create positive outcomes will be more heavily rewarded. These positive outcomes are results that indicate the community is growing and thriving.
Over the last year, we’ve researched community growth by interviewing community managers, surveying community members, and analyzing the results of our own prototype for this platform (early users will remember the Community version that used Social Points as a rewarding mechanism).
Through our research, we’ve identified several outcomes that add value to a community, helping it grow and become vibrant. Some of these outcomes include:
- Inspiring discussion (receiving replies to your comments)
- Breaking the ice (being the first commenter, leading to more discussion)
- Making meaningful conversation (receiving upvotes, or sometimes downvotes, on your comments)
- Developing relationships (working together to spark, or maintain, discussion around a topic)
By rewarding users who help produce these outcomes, we hope to create a positive environment where users can engage in fun, candid discussion about the content on our blog. The intended result is an added layer of user-generated content below each article that adds value for the reader and enhances their content experience.
Get Involved and Send Your Feedback
If you’re a writer at Crowd Content, you can get started right away by browsing content on our blog and leaving some comments (login with your Writer Account email and password). The best way for us to optimize the new platform is to get people using it and hear their feedback, so the more participation early on, the better.
We’re always open to hearing about what works, what doesn’t, what you like, and what you don’t like, so please don’t hesitate to voice your opinion. You can leave any comments or questions you have below this article, or email us at writers at crowdcontent dot com.
Now comment onward, have fun, and be rewarded!
