Tài liệu Driving traffic to the online photography website www.vnphoto.net

3 Acknowledgememt I would like to convey my sincere gratitude to the following people. Without their assistance the completion of this thesis would not have been possible. To Dr. Nguyen Duc Tri, whose guidance and support me from the initial to the final of this thesis. To Mr. Anh Tran for his assistance of the database retrieval of the website www.vnphoto.net. To members of the website www.vnphoto.net who took part in several surveys to provide input for user insight information. 3 4 Tutor’s comments 4 5 Contents Chapter 1 - Introduction ........................................................................................ 7 Chapter 2 – Literature review ............................................................................... 9 Trends in online photography ............................................................................... 9 Photo user’s classification................................................................................... 10 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 13 Chapter 3 – Analytics of VNPhoto.net website .................................................. 14 Site statistics ........................................................................................................ 14 Chapter 4 – Community building of VNPhoto.net ............................................ 18 VNPHOTO.net’s vision ...................................................................................... 18 Business strategies .............................................................................................. 18 I. Social Network Builders .................................................................................. 18 II. Enhance collaboration among VNPhoto users for sharing and exchanging photography hobby ............................................................................................. 24 III. Sustainable community development ........................................................... 32 Core Values ......................................................................................................... 32 Community Attributes ........................................................................................ 33 Business Development Plan ................................................................................ 33 I. Project timeline ................................................................................................ 33 II. Promoting VNPhoto ....................................................................................... 35 III. Return of Investment..................................................................................... 39 Chapter 5 – Conclusion ........................................................................................ 41 References .............................................................................................................. 41 Appendix ................................................................................................................ 43 VNPhoto Sitemap ............................................................................................... 43 VNPhoto features ................................................................................................ 43 5 6 Abstract This project “Community building for the online photography website www.vnphoto.net” with ambitions to build and develop a social network for Vietnamese photographers through the website www.vnphoto.net by creating humanity attributes toward photography lovers from the core values of People, Knowledge and Sharing for photo community. The website www.vnphoto.net herein after referred to as VNPhoto. 6 7 Chapter 1 - Introduction Photography for everyone • VNPhoto is one of the most popular and most professionally developed and maintained digital photography and digital imaging web resources available in Vietnam. It’s has been designed and maintained by professional web specialists and volunteer photographers. Nowadays, VNPhoto has become synonymous with: • Established and highly respected photography community in Vietnam. • The most active and informative discussion photography forums now in Vietnam with more than 62,000 members and over 1,350,000 articles are posted. (See Appendix C-4) • Attractive image gallery with more than 150,000 photographs. (See Appendix C-3) • Highest quality, most detailed camera reviews. (See Appendix C-5) • Powerful searchable "knowledge base" of digital photography information • The most comprehensive, powerful and easy to use digital camera specifications database. • Members come from 67 countries around the world. 7 8 • VNPhoto was established in April, 2005. Today, VNPhoto has really become a well-recognized and prestigious website for Vietnamese in sharing hobby, building community, and helping each others for better photography. • VNPhoto is an independent website dedicated for Vietnamese by providing industry news, camera reviews, and image distribution platform for photographers. (See Appendix C-1) • Starting from April 2010, VNPhoto has been upgraded to its latest version 3.0 by implementation of social networking functions to aim for the social destination for anyone who love photographs with the operational motto “Photography for everyone”. 8 9 Chapter 2 – Literature review Trends in online photography Number of camera users in Vietnam is growing rapidly. The major contribution for this growth is not only by regular film or digital cameras but also extend by new devices such as phone cameras, still camcorders. Owned by mature people who are young, dynamic and wealthy are typical characteristics of this age groups in society. This consumer tends to travel regularly, taking pictures on the go and sharing photos on the internet, they confidently establish new consumer trends for sharing and exchanging information through social network. They are also able to influence others to join in their community, willing to express their preferences with regards to camera products and photograph experience to others. Younger generation also favour high-tech products, with an increasing number using digital cameras. As this group always want the latest models and gadgets, these items are changed regularly, which has resulted in Vietnam becoming a dynamic market for camera equipment in last 2 years. According to the Ministry of Information and Communication, there were 22.8 million internet users in Vietnam in 2009, accounting for 26.6% of the total population, and an increase of 112.7% on 2005. For number of internet users, Vietnam has been ranked seventh highest among the countries with high internet use in Asia, by Internet World Stats. Therefore, younger generation go online and spend more time in the social networks compare to last few years. 9 10 According to the IDC, there were 675,000 digital cameras sold in Vietnam in 2009, an increase of 250% from 2008. In addition, about 10 million mobile phones sold in Vietnam markets which partial has phone camera function, estimated to account for around 7% of the volume sales. Overall it calculated for around over 1.3 million camera users per year. Moreover, IDC expects that compact cameras will continue to commodify and further become fashionable technology accessories. Digital camera will continue to grow and comprise a stronger share of the global product mix as consumers continue to embrace photography as a hobby, driven by lower-priced digital camera. Photo user’s classification In last 2 years, VNPhoto did several surveys by creating poll on forums, on its members to understand Vietnamese photography insight, user background and what their expectation for the products or service from clients. Though it has done within VNPhoto community however it may reflect quite a large number of Vietnamese users who touch base with photography community because VNPhoto is largest photo website in Vietnam. 10 11 Exhibit 1: Age of VNPhoto members. 727 members responded. Majority groups are from 20 to 34 years old, which contribution 68.91% of total members. Exhibit 2: Professionalism of VNPhoto members. 1,147 members responded. Students, IT engineers, service firms are majority groups. 11 12 Exhibit 3: Time do they spend for VNPhoto every day. 136 members responded. Mostly VNPhoto members spend around 2 to 3 hours per day to visit the site. Exhibit 4: Member’s expectation on VNPhoto activities. 87% members expect for the photo contest, seminar, good review articles and offline meeting compare to the rest of industry news, photo essay and camera’s promotion. 12 13 Conclusion The number of user’s using digital cameras increase rapidly in Vietnam, every year there is more than 1 million new users, the growth rate almost double a year. Majority of them are range in 20-34 year olds, spending 2 to 3 hours per day sharing pictures, photo treks, or information with their friend throughout social networks like VNPhoto website. New user become VNPhoto’s members or potential users and what people contribute to the website become photography assets and it may share to others to enrich the knowledge of Vietnamese photography community. Therefore, building for the online photography community will support and meet the trend of the growth of photography users in Vietnam. 13 14 Chapter 3 – Analytics of VNPhoto.net website This chapter will provide the rich insights of VNPhoto through third party website traffic tracker such as Google, Alexa. To date, VNPhoto is number one photography website in Vietnam in many aspects: big number of active members, large photograph library, powerful camera review sources, populated forums, etc… Site statistics • • Some key number of VNPHOTO.net website by February 1st, 2011: • over 62,000 members • over 1,350,000 articles • over 150,000 photos Average of 300,000 unique visitors which contribute over 90 million hits to the website per month. 14 15 Source: Google Analytics - February 1st, 2011 Source: Google Analytics - February 1st, 2011 • VNPHOTO.net is among the first of all photography websites in Vietnam. According to Alexa web traffic statistic in February 2011, it is ranked 15 16 #33,504 in the world according to the three-month Alexa traffic rankings and also #262 on top websites in Vietnam. Source: Alexa Traffic Stats. - February 10th, 2011  Based on internet averages, VNPhoto is visited more frequently by males who are in the age range 18-24, are university educated and browse this site from school/ office rather than home.  Approximately 30% of visits to the site are bounces (one pageview only), average 1 million pageviews per month. Daily time spend on site is around 18 minutes per user. The site has been online for more than six years. Vnphoto.net is in the “Cộng đồng mạng” category of websites. Search engines refer about 14% of visits to the site.  Relative to the general internet population, people income with less than US$ 30,000 a year are over-represented at VNPhoto compare to other income 16 17 groups. It’s typical for mobile tech website like tinhte.com, but slightly difference from online news such as vnexpress.net, yahoo.com.vn or tuoitre.com.vn in term of user segmentation. Source: Alexa Traffic Stats. - February 10th, 2011 17 18 Chapter 4 – Community building of VNPhoto.net VNPHOTO.net’s vision • Maintain and develop the largest digital photography website for everyone by providing platform for sharing hobby, building social network community, and helping each others for better photography. Business strategies I. Implement social network builder, make VNPhoto become the first photography community in Vietnam II. Enhance collaboration among VNPhoto users for sharing and exchanging photography hobby III. Sustainable community development, get VNPhoto become the social destination for anyone who love photography with the operational motto “Photography for everyone”. I. Social Network Builders Basic Structure of a Social Network A social network is practically a website wherein users are encouraged to sign up (usually for free) and connect to friends and acquaintances who are also members of the social network. It almost similarly way that VNPhoto been done in last 5 years. Meeting people online has now increased because of social network but the connection is not just based on coincidence. Social network connections are basically within people who seemed to be far from each other but would still prefer to have a connection anytime. 18 19 Standard Features in Social Networking Like any social network, VNPhoto has been developed which have the standard features which makes them part of the social networking group. The most important feature of a social networking website is the ability to create personalized homepage. Through this homepage, personal information and preference is shared. From location, hobbies and even simple preferences could be added. This data is then used by social networks to connect the user to like minded individuals if they chose to. Another basic feature of social networking is the ability to add friends and contacts in their personal homepage. It is through this homepage that more people could connect to others. They might not be familiar with each other but a request could be made so that more information could be known. Part of the simple features of the social networks is their ability to be integrated with applications or widgets. These add-on applications and widgets, interaction also increases interaction within the website. Social Status as a Major Part of Structure Social status may look like a simple part of the social network but it speaks so much about the behavior of the individual as well as expected interaction. Through social status, like minded individuals could come together and even communicate beyond social networking because of the similarity on social status. When there is similarity, the chances of knowing more about the other person also increases. A status is practically a gateway to more information that increases connectivity to other members of the social network. VNPhoto offer lots of features to promote those who has contributed to the community such as member status, points of 19 20 creditability, positive feedback benchmark, star rating, number of posts, etc… Based on those features, one can easily recognize other ranking in the community. VNPhoto community tool implementation Starting from April 2010, VNPhoto has been upgraded to its latest version 3.0 by implementation of social networking functions to aim for the social destination for anyone who love photography. We keep learning from other social network sites such as Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc… in order to fine tuning for VNPhoto in order to keep it competitiveness and meet user expectation as the number one photography community in Vietnam. Exhibit: Comparison of the social network deliverables and what VNPhoto can learn from industry 20 21 VNPhoto Community Tool Capabilities Supporting the platform for sharing hobby, building social network, VNPhoto is equipped with community tools which offer capabilities and functions that illustrated in the exhibit below: Connect with friends are just one of the many benefits to social networking online. One could develop an online friendship with someone in around the world, not just Vietnam if they are the same sharing or hobby. At VNPhoto you can tag, add & remove friend, view friend list, news feed, send message, update event, or blast out something just in their mind… 21 22 Exhibit: User page with community manager tool Online community members share common interests in hobbies, share moment, give comment to image you love, tag or add friend, so on so forth. 22