Post away! You can't clog the Feed
Our data and metrics clearly indicate that the number of items in a community is what drives traffic, engagement, transactions and growth. I know it’s common belief amongst admins that the number of members is what’s important, but our data proves otherwise. We’ve learned through studying your group’s behaviours that you can have a small but very healthy community, given the right ratio of items, buyers and sellers. Yet, communities of any size will suffer if supply is not adequate. In our case, “supply” is number of items. It is therefore important to get people to post as many items as possible, as soon as possible after they join a community.
Over the last year, we’ve been informed that some admins limit the number of items members can post because it “clogs the feed”. While we can understand the reasons, it’s saddening for us to see this happen when we know full well that this is seriously hurting their communities. We’ve also had complaints from members about this. All members want to do is post their dozens or hundreds of items in one go instead of having to post them over many days. It makes a lot of sense, people are busy!
So how do we make the experience enjoyable for members? How do we let people post dozens, if not hundreds of items at once and not “clog the feed”?
You guessed it, we figured it out. We have developed an algorithm that is “transparent", yet super effective, for how things will be sorted on the feed and in categories (when sorted by “last activity”). Remember when we promised you that we’d solve problems with computer code rather than rules and revoking people? This is a perfect example of this.
We have put in place a “limit” of 5/6 items per hour per member, without them really knowing it. Those who post more than 5 items within 60 minutes will initially see their extra items (i.e.: item 6, 7, 8 etc) at the top of the feed for 2 minutes. During those 2 minutes, these items will only be visible to them (they are still “unpublished”). After the initial 2 minute period, every extra item will be published and made visible to the entire community. However, they will be randomly scattered in the feed. These items might show up on the 5th page of the feed or the 30th page. In order to give the items the exposure they deserve, they will each get a free automatic but delayed bump. After the 2 minute wait, those items will start bumping, one every 10 minutes.
To clarify:
- There is absolutely no change if you post 5 items or less per hour.
- Only items #6 and up are affected by this.
- This is transparent to all members, including the person posting. There is no special user interface, it’s all in the way the feed order is calculated. Members posting multiple items shouldn't even notice this is happening.
- All items will show up in My Stuff as usual.
- All items will show up in Categories 2 minutes after being posted. The placement will differ from the previous behavior if sorting the category by Last Activity.
- People following the category in which items are posted will be notified as usual.
- People following the member posting items will be notified as usual.
- Members posting multiple items will see all their items at the top of the feed for 2 minutes to give them clear feedback that the items were successfully posted.
- During those 2 minutes, nobody else can see the items. Admins can see the items on the member’s profile, however.
- After 2 minutes, the items will be shuffled in the feed and will be visible to anyone scrolling far enough.
- Every “extra” item will be automatically bumped following the above schedule
- Items posted before this change will not be affected.
We hope you’ll like this small change. We’re excited about making every member’s experience more enjoyable.
With this new smarter feed algorithm in place, we ask that admins let members post as many items as they want since your feed can no longer get clogged. This is for everybody’s benefit after all!
So go ahead, post dozens, hundreds, thousands of items, VS can handle it!