Looking for something fishy
by Tom
Last week my family bought a new fish tank. We had been considering it for a few years and now that our boys are a little older we thought it would be a good new project.
So we trekked to the store and picked up all the recommended accessories ... heater, filters, fake plants, sunken pirate ship .... Wait! Fake plants? Hmmm ... what if we used LIVE plants? I had a tank for years as a kid, but I had never grown real aquatic plants. It seemed like this could add a level of interest (or smell) to the tank AND give me something to noodle around with.
So I typed “aquatic plants tank” into Google and surfed around for a while. I stumbled on a lot of potentially interesting stuff. Most if it appearing on blogs like aqua-wampa.blogspot.com and such. The writers seemed like they knew what they were talking about, but often they had some cockamamie ideas that were a little surprising to me.
For instance: several recommended removing the under-gravel filter from the tank if you have live plants. Turns our drawing the water through the gravel also draws it past the plant roots and they have a hard time absorbing nutrients. Hmmm ... okay.
That seemed to make some sense to me, but it opened up all sorts of new questions ... is my current filter enough? Will it lead to rotting stuff on the bottom? I could call the staff at the store, but I’d prefer to get more opinions from people who didn’t benefit from me spending more money.
That’s when the Internet started to let me down. Most of the content I was reading was from 2-3 years ago, and the follow up comments dribbled out after a few misunderstood questions. Since the site seemed a little neglected, I felt like if I posted it would fall into a void. The blogs were feeling like a one-way conversation rather than a place for responsive dialog.
I suspect there are active communities out there where I could ask my fishy questions and receive a variety of knowledgeable answers. I just haven’t found them and I don’t have the time to scour.
So what’s the opportunity? There is a huge upside for any organization—no matter the size—that cultivates an active online community through forums, blog discussions, and other social tools. We’re already to a point where community features are not optional if you want your site to be a relevant and frequent destination for your customers.
More importantly, we will continue to encourage all of our clients to regard features like client-side content management, social media, and other community-building tools essential to any new site. The investment of time and resources may seem substantial sometimes, but the long-term benefits will pay dividends with increased customer loyalty, perceived expertise, and sharing of ideas.