Ambassadors, Rank & Activity Official Update
Hi everyone,
There has been a lot of stir here lately about posting at Wealthy Affiliate, Ambassadorship and the Ranking platform and what people see and don't see within their Activity Dashboards.
Because of this I wanted to offer an official post from us to give you some perspective on our thoughts and where we plan to take these platforms moving forward (and what we have been working very hard on).
First Blog Posts, What Can You Post and What Shouldn't You
We have our rules here at Wealthy Affiliate, but there is always going to be room for interpretation. We don't feel we own the monopoly on what is necessarily a great post for people and what isn't.
If you are posting here in WA, you should aim to keep your posts.
- Relevant to your online business or journey online
- Motivational, Affiliate, Online Business, Strategy based
- Your successes and accomplishments as you move forward with your business.
But there is room for social posts. We are a community and over time people build relationships with folks and would like to share stuff with the community. Exciting news, like having a baby or a grandchild. Share their experiences from their latest business trip. A personal issue with their mindset or where they are losing focus. These should be fine as well.
Some posts will be more social, some will be more business related. Because of this we are considering the ability to choose the "type" of post or some categorization considering that there will be different types of posts. You may see that integrated into the editor as you move forward.
The key though, is to give YOU, the user control of what you see and what you don't. You will naturally follow people that you like, avoid people that you don't want to hear from, but there is a certain level of activity that needs to be used for exposure.
That leads me to the "new" Activity dashboard.
Activity Dashboard, 2.0 is Coming!
This is something that we have been working on quietly for quite some time. It is not quite into the testing phase, but the UI is designed and it is looking like a release of this will take place late summer or early fall.
It is a much nicer design, it is going to showcase things that should be showcased, and it is also going to give you new ways to interact within the platform and to do so more efficiently.
We have also considered mobile with the new platform, so you are going to be able to engage with WA in a much more enjoyable way as you are on the move on your mobile device (smartphone/tablet).
Ambassadorship Platform Update.
This is another significant project we have been actively working on behind the scenes. Everything from the interface design, to how Ambassadorship works has been taken into consideration with the update.
We have also spent a lot of time thinking of the best way to make the Ambassadorship program exciting for those that are using it. This takes into consideration community clout that people receive with ambassadorship and perhaps at some point some sort of incentive.
Stay tuned for updates in respect to this, these are likely coming late summer or early fall with some of the interface design updates coming mid summer (very soon).
Ranking, the Best Way to Do this
With the Ambassadorship platform update, there are going to be some major shifts in terms of ranking and where you end up ranking within the platform here. There is going to be much more emphasis on your interaction, helping others, how much you are using the platform here and the various system (ie, you have a true understanding of WA).
There will be less emphasis on posting for the sake of posting. Less emphasis on those that are consistently asking questions for the sake of trying to game rankings.
But there are literally 100's of interactions that we take into consideration with the ranking algorithm of ambassadorship.
Will it be perfect, no. Like Google and how they are constantly updating their algorithms, we are constantly doing the same here at WA.
The ranking update will likely be rolled out in the coming weeks.
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So there you have it. We have a lot going on behind the scenes in respect to posting content here at WA, in terms of ranking and ambassadorship and in respect to overall activity.
Lots to look forward to and if you have any comments, questions or feedback please leave them below.
Half the posts in here are about 'I've made it into the top 200/100/50/ambassador' it is one chain of events and viewed as 'success', something to aim for, and the training tells people to aim for it too
This is the best place to be online, the best resources, the best price, does it need 'incentives' of ANY sort internally?
I'm at the point that I feel responsible referring people to a platform that actually tells them 'success' is defined by being 'active' on the platform and their internal WA rank number, because that is not why they/we joined up
The focus on rank has especially the past few months seen people run campaigns of varying shades and definitions of 'helpfulness' across the platform, solely with the intention of rank boosting and we all know it works.
On the other hand, many truly successful people have blogged that their success rose as their rank fell, no one can compete for rank with someone who is posting or chatting in here all day instead of their website, 'activity' on the platform needs defined for rank juice
Your 2013 post says that without incentive you feared people would not be active or contribute - but social media and facebook have proved in the years since then that people will be active
If success is measured by our gains then that will determine the activity:
- when the gains are 50% commission as in the bootcamp niche, those people are very motivated to provide quality material for their referrals and keep them in
-when the gains in other niches are mastery, the thrill of figuring things out, successes, results, experiences and other affiliate commissions, those people have a lot to share and talk about too
-when the gains are internal WA rank, then the posts are 'woohoo my rank is high today, I am so successful' and fluff posts and platform wide charm campaigns
-when the gain is a nice place to hang out and do whatever you want off topic, then you risk having your platform hijacked without a firm hand
high rank doesn't need an incentive, it's earned and should be deserved
- though how people have defined that word 'deserve' recently is mind blowing - except to ask 'why did we join WA', and when we look at ambassadors could we forget the reason why we actually signed up for these resources and the siterubix hosting?
People need someone to look up to, good leaders, those who already have proved success should be at the top, even without having to be active - WA has produced a stream of 'gurus' all of whom say the training worked, yet members in here don't even get to meet them, many look elsewhere to lesser 'gurus' and shiny objects.
I vote put the top guys at the top, give them the top 25 numbers, and let us all follow in their example...and make those superaffiliates pay it forward with one breadcrumb blog to us a month...I learn so much from even one sentence from those guys
We 'own' the guy who wrote Money Blog lol, and many many other successful people in here who can make 300 premium sales in under 6 months - hey guys - this is an authority platform on so many levels, time to own that ;)
I am pleased to hear you are so passionate about what you do here, you interact with the community, you try to help like we do, being on a same level as we are for the sake of the community to seek out and get to know what we users are wishing for and your business idea to help anyone here who wants to be that successful as, you and others here who made it, are.
This all will make Wealthy Affiliate the Number One University of Affiliates online to Mankind one day. I believe in this vision that this will be.
I do not know if the Moon-landing is one of your visions too, some folks are talking about that here on your platform, I leave that up to you if you like to give a comment on that one lol :D
Kyle & Carson, I like to thank you personal for all the good things you have brought in my life since my sign up with Wealthy Affiliate.
You Both Rock!
This sounds awesome! I am very pleased to hear of the updates that are coming down the road, makes for exciting times for sure. Thank you to you and your team for all the hard work u guys put in, u have created a wonderful platform here of which I am proud to part of. :)
Carl
I don't show up here as much as I'd like to, but selecting posts to read and respond to is - er - selective. You know what I mean.