Discussion: Audience Participation

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Let's talk about audience participation.  Cyberfunded creativity lives or dies on interaction.  Audience participation is what distinguishes crowdfunding from a plain old store online.  It's part of the fuel that drives creators to produce more goodies.  It's part of the bait that attracts new viewers and donors. 

So how does it work?  How do you get people talking?  There are many types of interaction, including:
* Posting polls
* Calling for prompts
* Inviting viewer opinions or critiques
* Looping inspiration
* Asking the creator about the project
* Listing favorite projects for people to discuss
For more ideas on this topic, see "How to Boost Your Audience."

As a creator, what kind of audience participation do you find most useful in the creative process?  What things entice your audience to respond?  Have you tried anything that you really thought would work, but it just flopped?  Do you like audience cross-chat, or find it distracting?

As a viewer, what makes you lean forward and start typing?  Do you prefer polls, comments, Like/Favorite buttons, or some other particular option?  Do you have more fun talking to creators, or cross-chat with other audience members, or both?

Comments

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

As a viewer, nothing makes me want to interact more than a specific question. Like this! :P Polls are easy, and I'll fill them out about half the time. Like/favorites, less so. Direct questions that actually make me think my input will matter - that will hook me, if I've got time.

As a creator, I love it when people find bugs and give design input for my sites and projects, and they often have great ideas I don't think of. I probably like it best when I get someone asking for more of something creative I've done (asking to see more of a character or to see a finished version of a sketch), but who doesn't? I quite like audience cross-chat - it makes me feel like they are being entertained, even if I haven't got the time to be an immediate, active participant myself.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>Like/favorites, less so.<<

I like these on art or similar projects where there are oodles of things to choose from.

>>Direct questions that actually make me think my input will matter<<

Yeah, it doesn't take much for someone to pull the lever on the Bard-O-Matic.

>>I probably like it best when I get someone asking for more of something creative I've done<<

This is always valuable information. When someone tips extra on an items already funded, I count it like this.

>>I quite like audience cross-chat<<

It's amusing when the audience entertains themselves, yes. They'll keep each other busy while I'm writing poems during a fishbowl. Also, it's not rare for me to see a good idea in one of those threads and use it as a prompt, or a refinement of something else.