By ONEsite Team
Sep 30, 2010 12:00 AM CDT
The hotly discussed Forrester 2010 Global Social Technographics report indicates active participation is down. More individuals are joining social sites, fewer are contributing to them. Growth in “creators” seems to have hit a plateau and many marketers are asking what they can be done to reengage those creators and encourage new ones.
Among our clients, and across the web, the single greatest factor driving to engagement and the ultimate success of the site is the direct involvement of official contributors – editors, authors, staff, superstars, etc. It takes the commitment from the business and the technology to support it, but when done successfully it encourages creators by:
Reaching New and Casual Participants
Most sites fail to engage the majority of their audience. Many online communities are intimidating to the uninitiated or openly hostile to newcomers. One of the greatest benefits of involvement is the ability to highlight topics, solicit responses, and welcome newcomers as participants.
Good technology should make it easy to recognize newcomers and encourage their participation. It should create interfaces and entry-points that are simple introductions to the social aspects of the site.
If a user clicks “community” on your site and his hit by a list of forums, then you’ve failed. That does little to reach new participants. Becoming a creator shouldn’t be a struggle or daunting experience.
Rewarding Participation
The move from “joiner” to “creator” is not a permanent one. Like any relationship, keeping a creator active requires attention – it requires involvement.
Few rewards for participation go further than an official response. For everyone involved in the conversation, regardless of whether they received a direct response, seeing a response to their comments encourages their continued participation.
Sites should have real estate set aside to highlight the best of their users and content. This recognition is another heavy driver of participation. Not only does it reward the creator, but it encourages new creators seeking that recognition.
Involvement takes many forms. It can be the direct contribution of content, responses to user content or soliciting responses to specific topics. It can even be simply the curation of user content – highlighting the best and most active to encourage further participation. But without a doubt, that involvement, in whatever form, is the driving force behind encouraging new and continued participation.
