The Future of Communities Blog – Your comments are mostly a waste of time :)

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Most people have been told that in several studies only 90% of your community members are lurkers, 9% contribute something and the remaining 1% really account for most of the action. There are several angles that have been discussed about this in great detail. Still the question that we deal with on a daily basis is:

Here are some approaches:

1. Focus your efforts on the 1% and help them by making it easier to contribute. Compelling argument: Focus on the what you do best, is an approach that many have heard from several experts. Phil Wainewright suggests that you focus on those who are motivated to contribute.

2. Attempt to increase participation among the 9%: Compelling argument: Any incremental uptick will get you a more engaged audience.

3. Get rid of as many of the 90%. Compelling argument: They are not significantly enriching the community, but just parasites, so go forth and look for the next 1% types – or the “alphas” in your user community.

My view is you have to focus on the entire community. You have to keep the alphas happy because they drive the community forward and make it interesting, but it’s also important to find ways to encourage people to contribute, because that’s how you develop and grow your group of alphas. Even that 90% of lurkers is important, because that’s where most of your growth comes from. they may not contribute directly, but a number of them are contributing indirectly, and this is where most of your “friend of a friend” membership growth comes from.

ALL of these segments are important for different reasons — but not all of the segments are equal. If a situation comes up where I have to make a choice one way or another (the “either he goes or I go” situation, all things being equal I’ll cut more slack to the alphas and contributors over lurkers. You hope to be able to stop problems before it gets to that point, but sometimes, it’s just not possible, and when it does, the judgement has to be based on (1) who’s right, and (2) who’s the more important contributor.

4. Do a little of everything aka “peanut butter approach”: Compelling argument: Try several things at the same time and keep what works.

The admins need to set a tone and a set of standards, and hold to them. One guaranteed way to piss off a community is to judge things arbitrarily and inconsistently. If people don’t know what to expect, they’ll start looking over their virtual shoulders, and that’s a great way to throw cold water on a community and encourage people to move elsewhere.

5. Do nothing but understand and accept, plan accordingly. Compelling argument: Before you scoff at this consider how little we know about these things just yet and letting “things take their course” may not be a bad option.

The admins have to be the alphas. Ultimately, their word is law, or else. If the admins don’t take ownership, someone else will, and whoever becomes the prime alpha will set the agenda. If that’s not the admin, what you end up with is a community driven by someone else’s values, not the values of the person supposedly running it and paying for it. Rarely is that a good thing. As I like to put it, if someone isn’t committed to preventing the trolls from moving in, all you end up with are trolls. Is that why you put the time and energy and money into building a community for?

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  • http://www.bestengagingcommunities.com Mukund Mohan

    Chuq:
    “ALL of these segments are important for different reasons — but not all of the segments are equal.”
    - Good point. They are all important, but here is another question: If you had 10 min a day to work on your community – where would you spend it?
    I like your photos of the bird an orange sky on Flickr! Nice

  • http://aqualung.typepad.com/aqualung Ric

    I’ve heard that argument before as well – but if the numbers really hold, doesn’t cutting your audience down to the 10% currently active mean that you won’t have ANY high-touch members, and only one contributor (with rounding of course!)? You’ve got to have the lurkers otherwise those contributing don’t have an audience to play to.