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Oksana

The Lifecycle of Online Community Members « Scott Burkett's Pothole on the In... - 0 views

www.scottburkett.com/...-online-community-members.html

diagram participation

shared by Oksana on 22 Sep 07 - Cached
  • It is important to point out that the success or failure of an online community is usually determined by only a small percentage of the site’s audience. This loosely follows in the tradition of Vilfredo Pareto’s so-called 80/20 rule (also called the Pareto Principle). A study performed by Arthur Andersen found that only 5 percent to 15 percent of all members contributed frequently to the communities they visited. While there are always exceptions to this, the community-owner should strive to support those frequent contributors. This is the fast-track to expanding a membership base. Using the above diagram, you can see the evolution from passers-by all the way through to evangelists. The typical member starts off in the passer-by/stranger quadrant, then moves over to lurker status once they start having repeated visits to the community. Once a lurker comes “out” of the shadows and begins participating they enter into the participant quadrant. This is where they are both showing up and participating. By the time a member reaches the “evangelist” quadrant, they are quite adamant in their support of your community - even fanatical at times. This is a good thing.
  • Why did we experience such a dramatic jump in the 4th and 5th years? That’s how long it took for us to convert enough lurkers to participants, and enough participants to evangelists.
  • Once you hit a critical mass of participants, a certain number of those folks will become evangelists for your community, and will go to some pretty unbelievable extremes to promote it. These evangelists represent that aforementioned small minority that will effectively make or break your community.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • If you build it, they will come?
  • If you build it, they will not necessarily come.
  • Many communities fall by the wayside and close up shop because of this very reason.
  • If you build it, and promote it, they will come, at least once. It is then up to you to give them a positive impression of your community through your content, tools, presentation, and policies. It is of vital importance that these areas be addressed early and often if you want to maximize your ability to attract and retain members, and subsequently, participation.
  • important to understand a bit about the lifecycle of a community
  • When someone first discovers your online community, they are probably nothing more than curiosity seekers.
  • They may take a look around, and if they see enough value there for a possible future visit, they may possibly bookmark it. Future visits will either solidify that value for them, or convince them that there are better places to spend their time.
  • If they decide to visit periodically, they become what we call “lurkers”. These lurkers will rarely, if ever, post or publish anything within the community. Instead, they are content to simply view the musings of other community members. These lurkers are most often seeking a certain type of information, and are content to simply read the opinions of other members.
  • Eventually, some of these “lurkers” may progress into being regular participants. However, do not be fooled into thinking that you will have a meteoric conversion rate. Historically speaking, online communities have always had many more “lurkers” than regular participants.
Oksana

Derek's Blog: Participation Online - the Four Cs - 0 views

blog.core-ed.net/...icipation_online_the_four.html

participation the_four_cs

shared by Oksana on 21 Sep 07 - Cached
  • ways in which people participate in online communities
  • In particular
  • the different phases people seem to go through
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • My diagram attempts to illustrate how many participants in the online environment move through phases as they gain understanding and confidence.
  • consumer - The first phase is where participants (often referred to as lurkers) simply read and explore the posts of others. Far from being passive as the word lurker suggests, consumers can be very active participants in an online community - just not yet visible to others.
  • commentor - as this label suggests, these people make comments on others posts (either on blogs, or in discussion forums), often seeking clarification, agreeing with a statement, or offering a suggestion or link to something similar.
  • contributor - as this label suggests, contributors are those who have started their own blogs or who initiate new threads on discussion forums. They are confident about putting forth their own ideas etc.
  • commentator - a commentator is someone who frequently takes a 'meta' view of what is going on, providing a level of leadership within the community. Their contributions will often draw attention to the 'bigger picture', making links with other work - analysing and synthesising the contributions of others.
  • it's not intended to suggest that people will operate exclusively within one of these phases - there's plenty of evidence to suggest that contributors also post comments on other people's blogs etc.
  • attempt to illustrate the fact that most people appear to operate predominantly in one or other of the phases in their journey to becoming online citizens, and that there is some sort of progression that characterises this growth.
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