Squiz UK  >  Resources  >  Open Source CMS Blog  >  Transforming Static Web Sites into Slick Open Source Social Platforms: a Roadmap

We had a great day yesterday at our Open Source Social Networking Platform seminar in London.  Thirty or so folks attended to hear Mike Barrett of Compound Media give a superb pitch on the whys and wherefores of social networking.... and also get a preview of our all-new Open Source Social Networking Platform module.  A good time was had by all. 

As usual, we caught up with most people after the gig for some coffee.  One thing that struck me was how we (Squiz) need to be more mindful of some of our customers' requirements in relation to all this new-fangled Social wizardry: because it's true to say that some of us are only just beginning to think about deploying these new styles of web content publishing. 

A Lesson:  A Roadmap for Open Source Social Platforms is Required!

Many people aren't yet ready to dive headlong into an all-singing, all-dancing social networking environment (and in many cases never will, because their web audiences won't need to be doing this sort of thing).  And even when they are, from a commercial perspective there needs to be a pretty strong business case to do so... and even then, most sites will need a sensible period of experimentation before they make the leap.

So, whilst we debuted our new Open Source Social Networking Platform to generous applause, we also felt the need to work harder for those people who are only just beginning to make moves into these 'social' spaces.

As such, this post is dedicated to those of you who'd love to do it, it but are yet to put a toe in the water - a roadmap for taking you from a static web site to a social site, if you like....

Your First Open Source Social Platform Footsteps:  Here's Your Roadmap

The good news is that it's doesn't require technical rocket surgery to move from a largely static, one way web site to a more collaborative and social future.  It's more a case of changing your content habits than anything else.... and recognising that your content management responsibilities become two-fold:  you need to publish more of your own content, and you need to encourage your users to do their own things with it. 

Good Reasons to Turn Your Site into an Open Source Social Platform

Firstly, for those who are not yet convinced, I should mention that there's more to publishing 'social' content than just getting a pat on the back when someone posts a blog comment.  

Going social has the following commercial benefits:

• More compelling user experiences and more positive action:  social content is richer content that gives people more ways to navigate, interact, sign up and purchase - because your users become part and parcel of your content experience, rather than just recipients of it.
  
  
• Better SEO: social content is easier to link to, reference and share, which of course will help your PageRank.  In addition, user generated content also helps to increase your overall content footprint - over time, users will add their own views and insights in the shape of comments, polls, and the like... all of which acts like an extra level of descriptive metadata that'll help search engines to index your content more thoroughly and with a greater breadth of keywords.
  
  
• Better reach: because its easier to participate in and share, social content allows your users to spread the word more actively on your behalf.
  
  
• More user value:  taking a more social approach to content management ought to inform your overall editorial strategy. Once you let your users into the content generation process, you'll soon get a better feel for their wants and needs... and this should lead to the production of more useful, engaging content.  Your users will actively tell you what they want to use and read - and if done well, social content can become a hotbed of new ideas for new services, tools and features.
  
  
• More interaction, better relationships:  by making your site a two-way affair you immediately create more audience touch points, all of which are opportunities to learn, support and sell more effectively.
  

So much for the motivation, here's how you can start doing it...

Five Ways to Publish More 'Social' Content

Yesterday's publishing model was all one way.  Write.  Approve.  Publish. (Then maybe check out your stats to see how it's doing.)  

Today's social model requires some basic rewiring of these principles.  

Here's five things you ought to consider doing for/with your content....

1) Publish new content in new ways...

Think about creating new types of content like video, podcasts, blogs, and wikis.  All of these things are now inexpensive to produce and easy to house within your CMS.  Open source tools are available to help you do this, meaning that any implementation overheads can be limited to manpower rather than code.  

2) Enable your users to contribute and interact...

For all of your content - whether multimedia or plain text-based - look to introduce some elements that will allow your users to comment on it and share their views and opinions with others.  Simple functionality like polls, comments forms, discussion forums and instant messaging can be bolted on quickly and easily to your existing CMS. 

All of these mini-apps help you to interact directly with your users and will enable you to establish 'communities of interest' around certain content themes or publishing channels.  

3) Make your content presentation richer...

A few tweaks of your CMS will allow you to change the way your content is presented, creating a far richer user experience in the process.  The introduction of new metadata fields and content tagging lets you present your content inventory in more interesting ways via tag clouds. 

Content performance scoring can enable you to render 'hot topics' (or 'hot content') in sidebars.  And 'related asset' feeds can help your users to get to important content more quickly.  All of these minor technical developments will improve the usability of your site and the way you merchandise your content by providing users with additional navigation options.

4) Make your content more shareable...

You can extend the reach of your content by making it available to third party applications and web services, so that it becomes easier for your users to read and share.  For example, publishing your most dynamic and newsworthy content via RSS feeds makes it possible for users to access your content via their own Feed Readers, or integrate it within their own web sites or services.  

Simple plugins like an 'Email a Friend' function make it easier for folks to distribute your content on your behalf (and will enable you to grab their personal details in the process). 

Rendering specific content elements such as address and event details as 'Microformats' enables them to capture your content more easily with their address books and calendars.  And the addition of simple social bookmarking tools within your pags will make it easier for users to capture your content and share it with others via their own social bookmarking profile pages.

5) Give useful stuff away for free...

If you're able to introduce some of the above social publishing techniques, you'll soon discover some great ideas for new content and new ways of distributing it for free.  For instance, you may find that a particular set of blogs or content channels generate a dedicated following. 

If this is the case, then it might be time to create a new content-based tool to help people to access them in more convenient ways - like a desktop RSS widget that squirts content directly to their desktops; or a similar widget that they can plug into their social networking profile pages (eg, Facebook).

How to Build Your Open Source Social Platform

Here's some resources to help you on your way. As mentioned, since we're talking about an open source flavour of 'social,' all it really takes is some additional time and effort to build these new capabilities....

1) Publish new content in new ways...

• Blogging tools:  MySource Matrix Open Source CMS, Wordpress, Blogger
• Podcasting tools: Audacity, Juice, Podcast Generator
• Video serving, players and encoders:  MySource Matrix Open Source CMS, Miro, Riva, YouTube
• Wikis: MySource Matrix Open Source CMS, Zoho, TWiki

2) Enable your users to contribute and interact...

• Every enterprise-class Open Source CMS worth its salt will have built-in functionality to enable you to introduce user-generated content like comments and polls.  We're biased, so we'd recommend MySource Matrix for this of course :  )
  

3) Make your content presentation richer...

• Likewise, content tagging, scoring and the presentation of 'related assets' ought to be part of your core open source CMS functionality.  If not, check out our MySource Matrix Open Source CMS!

4) Make your content more shareable...

• RSS tools:  again, your CMS ought to output RSS as standard.  Other useful tools include FeedBurner, for management and measurement of your feeds.
• Email a Friend: ought ot be part and parcel of any decent enterprise-class Open Source CMS.
• Microformats: are an XML-based means of rendering specific content types. For further information about how to mark up your code in this way, see Wikipedia for the lowdown.  (Or talk to us!)
• Social Bookmarking:  there are plenty of useful plugins to make your content more shareable on social bookmarking sites, but our favourite is AddThis.  Just pop it on your page templates and leave the sharing effort to your users!
  

5) Give stuff away for free...

• Building XML-based widgets isn't hard to do - you just need a good development team like we have here at Squiz.  Alternatively, for a less customised approach, you can generate a widget and get it up and running within minutes at WidgetBox.

Conclusion

The road to an Open Source Social Networking Platform is, as you'd expect, open ...and yours to follow whenever you choose.  

If you don't have an immediate community that's crying out for a full blown implementation of a social networking platform, then our advice is to go steadily and quickly.  It's not hard to make your publishing habits and your user experiences more 'social'... all you have to do is start introducing the types of functionality described above on an incremental basis - say a new widget or content type each month - and pretty soon you'll have changed the entire complexion of your web site.

So don't hang about: go social!  And call us if you need any help making these first moves...