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This is the fourth article in the series on building out domains. The other three can be read at.....
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
OK, I admit it, I planned to stop this series at part 3 but just so much has happened since then I thought that I'd have to share it with all those people wanting to build out a domain or two.
Downwind now has a thriving community of pilots coming to each day discussing everything that relates to aviation. That's good.....but we found that there was a problem in the fact that many of the members didn't really have an emotional stake in the site as yet.
I sat down with my wife and we came to the conclusion that the best indicator of members buying into the site was if they put something up about themselves.....what better thing than a photograph.
This was nothing to do with the movie but with encouraging members to upload an "Avatar" (ie. photo) of themselves - the catchcry was stamp out the "Green blob" (the default image for members).It was then that Roselyn had a great idea to run a competition which was titled the "Avatar Awards".
 The competition involved a period of nominations where anyone could nominate a members avatar as a good one for one of 3 categories; funniest, personal, aviation. To make it a little more interesting we put a prize up of a Downwind polo shirt for each category.....it's not much but it helped spur things on.
After two weeks of nominations we had two weeks of voting (via the community polls plug-in for Joomla). A couple of things happened during this process. There was a rapid increase in the number of avatars being displayed by users (ie. they'd emotionally begun to buy-in) and there was a great feeling on the site as people had a lot of fun!
After counting the votes we announced the winners on the site and via our weekly emailed newsletter. We've received fantastic feedback which has made it all worthwhile. We're now contacting the winners and we would like to feature them on the site with a picture of them with their Downwind polo shirt on.....with any luck we'll get them. We have also added a "Avatar Winner" medal to their profile so that whenever people view their posts they can see that person one the Avatar competition for 2010.......you guessed it.....it's going to become an annual event!
Roselyn and I are now dreaming up some other great ideas for advertisers and members to get them all involved in making the site even better. What we have learned is that marketing doesn't have to be expensive....just innovative to capture the imagination.
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