When you’re creating the online experience for your organization, brand or even yourself, keep this simple advice in mind: Don’t be the capsule hotel, be the dinner party. It may sounds somewhat strange, but when I stumbled upon these two images I couldn’t help using them to illustrate this point: A shared online experience is always better than a solitary one.
Don’t be the capsule hotel, where people are isolated and by themselves. They may be technologically advanced and offer cool features, but they offer a solitary experience:
Image: Luxury Capsule by Flickr user madrigation
Be the dinner party. Everybody’s chatting away happily, and your friends are invited too:
Image: Friday Night Dinner Party by Flickr user Angelo
Even if it’s more crowded and maybe not as perfect as the capsule hotel experience, it’s more fun, more interesting, more social. You’d prefer sharing dinner with friends to a night in the capsule hotel anytime, wouldn’t you? Well, the same goes for online communities. Take all steps necessary to make sure you offer the most social, shared experience possible. It starts with simple, small steps: Let your guests talk to each other by enabling comments, and make it easy to get in touch by opening up contact channels. See what works for you and what doesn’t, but please, say goodbye to the idea of having a controlled user experience if that means cutting out social aspects.
