Here at Disqus, we’re always dreaming up tools that will help our publishers boost community engagement. A highly engaged community enjoys robust returning visitor traffic and time-on-site, two crucial performance metrics that can lead to higher ad revenue and better SEO positioning.
There are many sure-fire methods that publishers can use when trying to generate engagement, and one of the most effective of them is to always make sure that your users feel recognized – after all, they're taking time out of their busy schedules to make thoughtful contributions to the conversation.That’s where our new Badges feature comes in. Now you can award special badges to those users who transform your community into a special place -- these are the people who continue to move the conversation in new and exciting directions, and they deserve a little reward for their time and effort.
Since we announced this feature two weeks ago, tons of Disqus publishers have begun creating and awarding badges of their own. Allow us to show off some of our favorites so far!
💡Note: all of the images below display the badge, the badge name, and the criteria that trigger each badge. Only the badge itself is displayed publicly.
Let 'em know who's in charge
Badges can be a fun way of identifying your site's organizational admins and moderators.
Check out the badge our friends at SpoilerTV created to designate staff members:
Or how about these two snazzy badges from The Chat Shack and Cricdiction?
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Let automated badges do all of the work for you
Automated badges are awarded automatically once a user meets your designated and customizable criteria. You only have to set automated badges up once - they'll be awarded instantaneously moving forward.
Destructoid and BrokenSilenze have both created badges that are awarded when commenters receive a certain number of upvotes:
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ScreenAge Wasteland and The Lincolnite, on the other hand, have created automated badges that are triggered whenever a commenter reaches a specific threshold of comments (note: badges aren't retroactive):
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Award manual badges right on the spot
Manual badges give you the freedom to award totally customizable badges whenever and to whomever you want.
How about these two great manual badges from The Avocado?
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Explore.org has created a manual badge to reward especially helpful members of their community:
Cricdiction has created a Verified Expert badge to award to users who have demonstrated thorough expertise time and time again:
... and last but certainly not least
As we said above, badges are supposed to be FUN. How else to explain this hilarious badge from I heart CVS? Because sometimes, you just gotta recognize moustache perfection when you see it...
It's time to reward your community all-stars!
It's time to create and award a few badges of your own! Just click the button below to get started...
