Scribd is one of the cooler sites around. How can you not love a company whose mission is to advance the distribution of documents? The problem it faces is that users quickly download documents without contributing much to the site.
What to do? Enter social:
The website now sports an array of social features designed to improve user engagement, build community, and get people to come back. This includes the addition of a homepage feed, the ability to follow other users, a new profile news feed, reading lists, status updates, and more.
With sites as varied as eBay, PriceGrabber, and Scribd all growing their own communities, one has to wonder whether social is the new flavor-of-the-month. Does it makes sense to grow a community organically in such cases, or to simply rely upon a service like Facebook Connect? And do all these sites need a social component in the first place?
Adding social elements to one’s site is all good and well if it makes sense relative to one’s overall marketing strategy. Some sites will simply not need a social component. (Indeed, where speed-of-transaction is paramount, adding a social element could inflict serious damage to one’s profit margins as users tarry in chit-chat rather than consummate a transaction.) Adding social features to one’s site only makes sense if doing so fits into a greater marketing strategy.
And that’s all I have to say about the war in Vietnam.
via Scribd Goes Social, Adds News Feeds and Followers.
