Graphics Unleashed Community and Top Fans

One of our biggest goals over the years has been to build a community where users of graphics software could find solutions to the issues they face. We try to do our best in putting out information and products (some free and some commercial) to address those issues. In order for us to truly have a community, it really shouldn't be a one-sided conversation. There has never been a better time for all of us to interact with each other. We have provided information and products, now we want to provide some incentive to you to interact a bit more in the community.

For the time being, we will focus on the Graphics Unleashed Facebook Page for our interactive community. Each of our blog posts is also posted there and you can comment on the posts. We also post other information on the page. Some of it is to help with your use of graphics software and some is just for a little fun conversation. We may consider other social outlets for an incentive in the future, but right now it will only be provided for the Graphics Unleashed Facebook Page.

If we are going to provide incentive for interaction, we have to find a way to judge those who interact the most. A couple of weeks ago we installed the Top Fan app from Booshaka on our page and it scores everyone who interacts with our page. Want to see the standings? Just click on the Top Fans tab of the page. The scoreboard is automatically updated once a day.

A simple way to provide incentive would be to give the prize to the person who is at the top of the list. Unfortunately there could be someone who provides no valuable interaction and yet they score the most points. Therefore we are leaning towards selecting someone randomly from the top 10 or top 20. We are certainly open to your suggestions as to how to pick the top fan. We are also leaning towards selecting the top fan once a month with the first top fan based on April 2012 results.

Right now the incentive is also up in the air. If we offered the latest electronic gadget, we fear that we would get interaction from people who have no love for graphics software. They will simply do what they need to do to win the gadget. We want genuine interaction from people who love graphics software. One thought is something like a Visa Gift Card. Another would be a gift certificate to use in Graphics Unleashed Media Marketplace. One reason we like the latter is that it would be truly valuable to our core audience of graphics software users, but not so valuable to those who would interact just to win a gadget.

I'm always about full disclosure, so I'll tell you that having you interact does benefit Graphics Unleashed. The more interaction we get on the Graphics Unleashed Facebook Page, the more people are exposed to the information we post. Sure we want more people to be exposed to our information. That said, we also think it makes the community more valuable to you when there are more people interacting.

Obviously there are still a lot of details we need to iron out. I wanted to post this so we could get your thoughts so we can make this a win-win for everyone.