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Seeking ideas

Forums: General Discussion
Created on: 05/06/18 12:58 PM Views: 970 Replies: 15
Sunday, May 6, 2018 at 12:58 PM

I am looking for ideas of how to invigorate our site and encourage more participation.

A little over 2 years ago we had a very successful 50-year reunion. For about a year afterwards, classmates were still connecting and wanted to view photos from the reunion and remained active on the site.

For the past six months, there has been virtually no activity. I am looking for ideas you may have successfully tried to keep interest in your site.

We have a large class (1,111) and many of the people have known each other since 1st grade; so there is a real connection, but people get lost in their personal lives and forget how much fun they had at the reunion and the impact their friends had on their lives.

I have just begun to redesign the site and am looking for any ideas to encourage participation. Thanks.

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Sunday, May 6, 2018 at 1:20 PM - Response #1

Art, on the Forum List, click on General Discussion, and then on the first Sticky forum, "How do you keep up interest in your site?" This forum topic has been around awhile, with over 38,000 views and 134 replies. Although the last post was in 2016, you may find something useful there.

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Edited 05/06/18 1:22 PM
Sunday, May 6, 2018 at 8:23 PM - Response #2

Hi!! I've been thinking about doing a Profile of the Month...or Biography of the Month..well, you get it. Lots of people may not want to do it, but some WILL for sure. I have alot of people who LOVE to talk about themselves...Very Happy This way, more talk about neighorhoods, siblings, parents, etc....

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Sunday, May 6, 2018 at 9:13 PM - Response #3

I started a feature I called Teachers We Remember. It involved a lot of old newspaper research - I used library resources, newspapers.com and ancestry.com. People love it! They have added comments and shared their own memories, and it has generated conversations about both teachers can classes. I also used some of these same resources to find articles about class activities that were written by a classmate who was the official reporter for our school.

We are the Class of 1961, and most of our teachers had passed on. It was an unexpected pleasure to find that some of our teachers were still alive and well. We sent letters to them and actually got responses from some of our favorites.

I have been stretching this feature out over a couple of years because it does require some time to gather enough information to create a meaningful article. It does seem to be worth it, however, in terms of keeping up interest in the site.

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Monday, May 7, 2018 at 9:20 PM - Response #4

I was wondering if any group has used Zoom to do interviews of the Month? Zoom is free up to about 45 users at a time I think? Not sure how we could structure this... I'd like to know if someone has complied a list of questions/topics to carry an interview to the end...

We could name it "ClassBytes"? Thoughts?

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Monday, May 7, 2018 at 10:58 PM - Response #5

We have posted hundreds of our high school newspapers in searchable .PDF format. Some go back to 1911.

When I scan the year books, I try to include about 100 of the misc photos, team sports, events, proms for each class. Then, at the reunion, the gallery can be a slide show projected on the wall. Also always available on line.

I would like to find an app to present a "Who is This Classmate?" with four or five choices. Sort of an on line quiz show. Lots of good information in classmates School Story postings.

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Tuesday, May 8, 2018 at 8:35 AM - Response #6

Jim, Tryinteract.com is an application that may do what you want. You can build online quizzes, contests, surveys ,etc. We have used it a number of times and it works good. For most basic applications it is free.
Here is a link to a sample: Link
Link to Poll...

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Edited 05/09/18 1:38 AM
Tuesday, May 8, 2018 at 9:36 AM - Response #7

Thank you all for your ideas. I have totally redesigned our site and sent out a classwide e-mail announcing the changes. Amazingly, over 77% of our located classmates opened that e-mail in the first 24 hours and we had a huge number who went online. The response has been exactly what I had hoped.

They particularly liked the new addition of a "monthly classmate spotlight". I began the series with our class valedictorian who is a world famous author of children's books. I was trying to think who would be willing to follow her and thought I would totally change direction and do the second spotlight on our favorite teacher.

The only negative feedback I have received is about the playlist of songs from the 60's. Apparently the playlist does not work for people who use their iphone. I believe it is because the class creator player uses "flash".

I also set up a "travel survey" asking for their favorite cities, experiences, cruise lines and airlines. I am trying to figure out how they can see the results since the answers are all in the form of comments. Any suggestions?

Once again, thank you all for your suggestions.

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Tuesday, May 8, 2018 at 11:36 AM - Response #8

Art,
Have you looked at Jack Vermeulen's music player? {HERE} It works quite well, references your choice of YouTube videos, and is not Flash based.

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Tuesday, May 8, 2018 at 4:07 PM - Response #9

Art,
Our 50th was 10/2015 and our log ins continue to be good. I supply daily content which generates email notifications. Content ranges from hometown pro & college sports, upcoming films on Netflix, ever changing music using YouTube, upcoming concerts to our area, travel, photos of small gatherings (seems just one group photo generates lots of log ins.) There's an interesting travel website, Afar, that has awesome travel content & photos ranging from exotic to locations closer to home.
Usually, I bank a ton of content & use it when I'm low on interesting topics. I've added several new photo galleries of classmates now & then. You've already received great suggestions.

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Tuesday, May 8, 2018 at 9:36 PM - Response #10

Phil,
Do you have any samples on your web site that you can share?

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Tuesday, May 8, 2018 at 9:40 PM - Response #11

I use Jack's music player.
I have seven high school web sites.
I load the music into one site in the vault, then just copy the source to the other sites.
That way, I have to maintain only the one site for vault storage and then I can update the other six sites later.
Easy to use.

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Tuesday, May 8, 2018 at 10:09 PM - Response #12

John is correct. If you are just playing MP3 music, use exactly the same links you are using now. Probably stored on CC but links can be anywhere (as can CC Flash player).

MP3 music plays instantly on all devices. No flash used since ALL newer Browsers support this natively.

HTML5 was a large step forward making all this possible.

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Wednesday, May 9, 2018 at 1:40 AM - Response #13

Jim, please see my response above. I've added a link to a sample quiz and a link to an actual reunion poll.

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Sunday, May 13, 2018 at 11:44 AM - Response #14

John Ralph wrote:

Art,
Have you looked at Jack Vermeulen's music player? {HERE} It works quite well, references your choice of YouTube videos, and is not Flash based.

Perhaps I am blind, but I could not find the code to create the JVideoPlayer.

Art

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Sunday, May 13, 2018 at 3:59 PM - Response #15

First post - with the link to JVideoPlayer Instructions

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