Ever since Mahalo introduced Page Management last June there seems users have mostly stuck to toe dipping and feeling it out. As the months have gone by and users have started to really earn some hard cash, (in some cases more then I make as an hourly worker,)


Users have starting to become more innovative to achieve two things.
A)Traffic
B)Search Engine Rank

One trend I noticed this weekend from two of our two greatest users @robbrown and @philipy have decided to start some contests to drive traffic and a few SEO points to their Mahalo Pages.

First @Robbrown started a contest to get users to Tweet out his Mahalo page, he's looking for 50 Tweets and promises Mahalo Dollars to those who help him out.

@philipy took it to another level by asking users to blog about his iPhone and related pages. He's also offering Mahalo Dollars to the users who help him out. @Philipy's iphone page has already earned him over 3,000 views and over 15 Mahalo Dollars.

iPhone

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Great ideas, the jury is still on how they will develop.

Good things are happening on Mahalo, we are seeing a lot of new users and I wanted to make sure that the new Mahaloians are getting the best possible advice on how to become successful within Mahalo. The Welcome Wednesday thread worked well last week, let's do it again even if it's a day late. That's just how we roll.

I put together this page, [[Advice For New Mahalo Users]], it's a collection of advice given from members on Mahalo who we have recognized as being the best on site.

Advice For New Mahalo Users

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I find it helpful when our veteran users engage new users with helpful advice, even by just sharing the page [[How Mahalo Answers Works]] could be the difference between a ugly yellow belt deserter and a potential black belt pro.

In my past experiences, a lot of communities that are built from the ground up tend to stress during periods of rapid growth. Considering Mahalo is poised to have continuous rapid growth, we should all agree not to get super stressed when newer users jump right on into Mahalo. As long as a user isn't spamming we should encourage them to answer questions in whatever manner they wish, and not judge their potential.

We were all new once, no matter how much of a lost cause you think a user is, offering advice and links to helpful pages and explanations for unhelpful votes means a world of difference. When you think your advice is a lost cause, consider the lurkers and new visitors who read your words, they might become the next black belts.

The Great Mahalo Connection

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I've been the Community Manager over at Mahalo Answers for most of it's existence now and I've noticed over time one the main problems is users don't know "how it works" I actually get a few emails a day from new users telling me how confusing it is. Which is a shame because of the simple Q&A concept, but in their defense Mahalo has a lot going on. So I spend some time to build some helpful "How To's" like this one, How Mahalo Answers works.

We've had a good summer, seems like traffic is on the up and up, I hope with more helpful pages the new users will stick around and really get into the opportunity Mahalo presents.



The widget below is small version of the page, for the full thing check it out here, I hope it helps users get started.

How Mahalo Answers Works

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