Seeking input on email digests and notifications

[Evan]

We've posted before, seeking input about control over email notifications. We're gearing up for a project that would do just that, allowing Network Creators to control what their notifications look like (no text, excerpts or full text) as well as allowing you and your members to receive emails in digest form.

In planning this feature, we'd love to get some feedback from Network Creators on what you'd like to see. For more context, the idea is that when we roll this feature out, your members can elect to receive some emails from your Ning Network in digest form (so the emails are rolled up together instead of sent individually).

I have a couple questions I'd love your input on:

• As part of this project, we're planning on allowing you to enable your Ning Network's notifications to include the full text of comments into email notifications. However, would you want digest emails to also include the full text? That could result is massively long emails.
• How interested would you/your members be in weekly digests? Would daily digests suffice?
• Would any Network Creator not want their members to be able to receive digests?
• Should there be emails that should always be sent instantly, and not wrapped into a digest? Do you want control over which ones?
• Would any Network Creators want to change your members' email settings for them to turn on digests for your members, without them taking any action?
• Would you want to control which types of emails are included in the digest, and which are not?

Thanks, and I look forward to your input!

[Janettee McCrary]

Thanks:)

[Garfield Creator]

OMG! Yahoo groups! It is not a social network but I don't see why any Network Creator can could use Yahoo groups now to do what Ning is attempting to do. I haven't even started to explore the depths of worthwhile hacks.

Yahoo Groups is an email manager and you can build your own newsletter with digest and everything else just by substituting it as what you would use for your broadcast message. However, while you'd have the features you'd have yahoo's advertising and it wouldn't be as seamless.

I would be ready to pounce though on some yahoo groups when Ning ID is no longer necessary to log in. There are a lot of groups in need of a social network make over.

[Janettee McCrary]

Garfield I'm sorry but this response confused me lol. Did this have anything to do with what I said? (Other than that it's about Yahoo Groups?)

[Garfield Creator]

It was more in response to Celina's response to yours about yahoo groups and my gushing about how there are some really cool things about it.

[Janettee McCrary]

Ah. LOL. I was confused.

[Brian Floe]

For instance, next to their email address on the member management page, you could have an image or text that indicates whether they have selected No Emails, Important Notices (Broadcasts) Only, Daily Digest, Weekly Digest, or Immediate Notifications (Individual Content, As It's Posted).

That's an excellent idea. Further more: x members have daily digest / x members have weekly digest etc. include this into a statistics page.

I'm glad you liked the merging of digest and latest activity:

link to comment

[Evan]

Hey Janettee!

Thanks for all your feedback, I'll definitely keep it in mind. I know a few of you have asked for members to not be allowed to turn off emails. Unfortunately, that's not something we can offer. To comply with the law, we must offer a way for members to turn off emails. What we might be able to do is better encourage members to keep receiving broadcast messages when they are attempting to turn off emails — I'll investigate that.

I'm looking at allowing NCs space at the top of the digests that they could control (adding text/images as they see fit). Additionally, if we can include some statistics (3 new discussions this week) hopefully that could allow digests to replace some of the "Best of" emails you send out now.

We can also look at better surfacing member email settings to NCs, even if only in the .csv export.

/Evan
Ning Product Manager

[Brian Floe]

Statistics would be a VERY good idea ! Morphing the idea a little bit into a kind of weekly newsletter. Awsome!

I can't tell you how excited I am about you guys looking into this !!! Go Ning!!!

[Janettee McCrary]

I'm always glad to help with ideas:) I actually wasn't sure that we could turn them off, which is why I suggested a warning notice stating that if they turn all emails off they won't get important emails either, as well as a notice when they sign up asking them to add us to their email address so we don't go to spam if they DO decide to let us email them. So I'm glad you're looking into something to better help members understand the email settings. I tried to create a small "here's how this works" how-to for email settings but I'm sure I didn't really get my message across because I have a hard time thinking like a member (who may or may not even know anything at all about computers/internet). I try but sometimes I am too technical, sigh.

That would be awesome to be able to add content on the digests:) And although I would really love to be able to see their settings in the admin panel, even an exported version would work, especially since I export my member list to gmail frequently, and so anything that doesn't fit elsewhere goes to notes (a perfect place). I really like using this because when I export, if they have edited their profile I find I have a history of their profile changes, as well:)

Sounds like you guys are doing great! Looking forward to the upcoming changes!

[Jim Locke]

For forums, I think users need to have the options that are provided by Yahoo Groups, Sharepoint, etc. They should be fully email enabled with each forum having its own distinct email list and group of subscribers. Otherwise, the product is not competitive on a feature basis. My advice would be to have Yahoo Groups be your initial design guide and make improvements from there.

Other than that, I would be OK with Facebook style messaging for other types of content. In my opinion, forums are the exception, not the rule.

[Garfield Creator]

Broadcast Message Calendar & Communication Center. If you ever notice Jen's Network you will notice something every Ning Creator can learn from and Jeanettee has been good about this as well.

Communication between a Network Creator and their Community can be cyclical in a way which honors rituals in time. A communication center with a place to schedule and plan communications based on these timeless rituals we call holidays and important dates would be useful & relevant to a community. Memorial day, Father's Day, Mother's Day, Labor Day, 4th of July, etc each of these holidays also hold a key revenue point for businesses all over the world. There are also Network Specific Holidays. Member specific birthdays. There is a time code to be unlocked here where specific communications to specific people or groups of people can make a difference in engagement. National and international holidays especially as many networks are global.

Do you know what Boxing day is well most Canadians do and Canadian members know when Canada Day is and it may be significant to them to get a notification about that. So when you talk of Digest or weekly or even yearly you can begin to get a bigger scope where notifications can be tied to meaningful events organized by time. If you are not going to implement I certainly will using third party software because these are opportunities for communication that can help foster community and engagement.

[Janettee McCrary]

Thanks for the mention, Yes, I do try to post on major holidays. I currently only post on US holidays because I have few members from other countries, but that will likely change as my membership becomes more diverse. I usually use forums for this, but I'm curious to know what other people might use. Do you use events? Do you use a third-party feature? What do you include? I usually try to include photos, poems, etc... Anything that is relevent.