Homebase launched a good idea today, a community for people that want to start gardening. It’s not named after Homebase, it’s got a strong purpose and the audience is likely to be interested in talking to each other.
But you can spot the problem in seconds, it’s impossible to find the community.
This isn’t about Homebase building meaningful social capital between their audience. This is about Homebase spending lots of money to create plenty of content to force upon an initial e-mail list of 2.5m! What a waste.
The community should be the most visible aspect of the front page, conversations should be highlighted, members featured, future events promoted. Content should primarily come from members, not Homebase.
Took me about 5 minutes to find the forum section.
Posted by: John Haydon | Thursday, 18 March 2010 at 10:53
Took me 30 seconds to find the forum, but I wouldn't have known one was there if it wasn't for Richard's post, and hence would not have started looking for one. It's certainly not apparent there is a community on the site. If it's a community based site they need to have a prominent link to the "community" on the home page. Otherwise what's the point.
Posted by: Account Deleted | Thursday, 18 March 2010 at 11:43