Goal: Our aim is not to make or beg the testers to come back to Connections, but make Connections attractive for the testers to be willing to return to Connections themselves.
To achieve that:
We must actively communicate with testers about changes to Connections – new features, fixes, improvements, etc.
Give testers something in return, e.g., bookshelf and reviews widgets for their blogs, Facebook and Twitter interaction with Connections, etc.
As for the things mentioned above, we should:
Have a direct communication with testers about each feedback received from them
Have a weekly summary e-mail sent out to all the testers on Monday morning, where we they get introduced to all the changes and feature updates
Consider some kind of reward system for testers suggesting new features – e.g., mention the tester in credits or instructions, etc.
Have a scheduled chat with testers in Connections to discuss the issues and meanwhile demonstrate how groupchat works
As for development:
Develop bookshelf and reviews widgets for testers to add to their blogs
Consider adding Twitter, Facebook and Myspace integration