My Thoughts on BigTreeTop.com

I received an invitation recently to a social media community site called BigTreeTop.com . Being a curious social media advocate I decided to join the site to experience what it was all about.

When joining it asks you to sign up, the usual drab of sign on name and password, we all know the drill. The site then asks you for a specific topic you would like to discuss in the BigTreeTop Community Platform. I chose blogging. You proceed to another box where it asks, “What goal do you have pertaining to your topic.” I filled it out: Have an under 500,000 Alexa ranking for my blog.

The community itself is centered around different tree tops. A tree top could be any type of community centered environment whether a store or a county. A user has their own personal tree-top, as well as community tree tops you can join.

A business can create a site where their customers and employees can join the treetop and make suggestions or ideas for the store. The users can then rank the suggestions good or bad, thumb up or thumb down. In this sense BigTreeTop is mashing ranking and social media into one page for content creation. A good way to stay connected to your customers.

Splinters of BigTreeTop
The user interface of the site is a little hard to handle. The ideas of aggregating posts and comments of your friends onto your page (much like Twitter) is a good idea but is designed haphazardly. I was slightly confused on who and where some of the comments were coming from.

I received the invitation from a friend in Indianapolis but the problem I found with the site is that it is based primarily in Bloomington, Indiana. The creators are based in Bloomington and the site was launched with businesses in the Bloomington area but there doesn’t seem to be much push outside of the original location.

When you join the community information about the site and using the site is scarce. There is a 120 second video you can watch which basically talks about the benefits of using BigTreeTop.com. I disagree with some of the stuff the video talks about: (I would have posted the video but there was not an embed link. Problem? Yes.)

Joe realized that more and more people are connecting and doing things over the Internet. Joe has a website and has tried blogging. Joe has even tried to join social communities. The problem is that none of these other services really help him connect his community in ways to really help his business. They take up too much of his time and they don’t give me any real insights into how he may be able to make his business better.

The video goes onto say that Joe created a BigTreeTop account and now he has a blog, website, and social community all in one spot. Here is the biggest problem I have with that idea:

Customers are inundated daily with new social media platforms and social communities. Facebook and Myspace led the charge in the social community war and new sites are coming out daily. Why create another site a customer has to join? Why not join the community they are already a part of? There are plenty of ways to connect with your customers on existing sites whether it is an application or a featured page.

Why not create an application for Facebook where customers can rank and add ideas to your profile page? Your customer base already spends time on social communities, reach them where they hang out!

The Good of BigTreeTop
The creators of BigTreeTop have an interactive kiosk a store owner can place in their location that syncs directly with BigTreeTop.com. A customer can add ideas and rank ideas/experiences while in the store. GREAT IDEA! The interactive kiosk may be the saving grace for BigTreeTop.com. Creators and members of social communities are always trying to find new ways to connect to each other. At the location seems to be the best idea yet!

I’m not sure whether the cost of the kiosk outweighs the benefit but the idea of interacting inside of the location is a great one!

Overall the site is designed efficiently and well maintained. I enjoyed the goal setting and topical questions when you joined the community. If BigTreeTop can spread outside of their current locale they may have some stomping power in the state of Indiana.