Even if you want your members’ profiles to include their eye colour, favorite bird, and their zip code, you don’t always have to gather the full information on the sign-up page.
You only need to get them to take that first step to join the site–usually choosing a username, a password, and typing in their e-mail address.
But what if you could make it even easier than that?
My favorite example of a clean and lean sign-up process is posterous,which has gotten rid of the sign-up requirement altogether!
You just send an e-mail with an attachment to the site, and they automatically create a page for you, with the attachment posted, and send you a simple e-mail with the link to your new blog, and an invitation to create a password.
At this point, my content is already posted to their site: I’m committed, so following through is now more natural and less of a hurdle.
Another great example is Tripit.com. All you have to do is forward the confirmation email your airline sends you when you book a flight to Tripit at plans@tripit.com and they automatically set up your own itinerary page that you can add to.
No sign up, no choosing a username. Just forward an e-mail. Of course, later on you can build out your profile, because by them you are already committed to a certain degree.
So think about your site’s sign-up process…
Are you asking for too much information? How can you speed up the process and get more members? How can you engage them in your community without a formal sign-up process? What can you learn and adapt from the posterous or Tripit models?
If you found this blog post helpful, then you'll love the hundreds of tips, real-life examples, and proven strategies that you'll find in my Hands-on Guide to Starting a Niche Social Network!
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