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I’ve often spoken to clients, colleagues and conferences about the “rule of thumb” in terms of community engagement. This could be engagement in a social network, a community content portal or an enterprise venture. It’s a little Jack Walshian in its approach, but serves to illustrate the point.

* 70% just watch
* 20% actually participate/ create content
* 10% shouldn’t be there in the first place.

While it isn’t backed up with any research/ scientific method, it does guide organisations in terms of how to engage, who to engage, how to segment and most importantly, how important your “social kingpins” (the 20%) are.

This article sites Forrester Research and splits participation as such:

To help companies target their internet strategies, Li and Bernoff have organised Forrester research into a “social technology ladder,” which classifies consumers based on their participation in various types of social networking. On the lowest rung of the ladder are the “inactives,” some 44% of all US American adults who were online in 2007. Higher up are the “joiners,” the 25% who visit social networking sites like MySpace; collectors, an elite 15% who collect and aggregate information; and critics, those who post ratings and reviews as well as contribute to blogs and forums. Only 18% of all online Americans actually create content, publishing an article or a blog at least once a month, maintaining a web page or uploading content to sites like YouTube.

Food for thought … Online engagement is just like the playground. Certain people lead, others bully. Most watch. Everyone remembers …




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8 Responses to “Audience participation in the social networking model”

You forgot to include the lurkers: those who watch and as soon as someone steps out of line they get very creative.. ;_

(Report abuse)

Alan Alston on October 31st, 2008 at 2:05 pm

The trolls! (1% destructive personalities)

(Report abuse)

Andy Hadfield on October 31st, 2008 at 2:41 pm

I have to agree with the ratio’s mentioned above.

We run 2 sites aimed at the social media sphere. One being www.mydl.co.za and the other www.iblog.co.za.

Where both are geared towards bloggers, you find that initially a member joins and is active at first, later they become watchers with occasional interaction.

This social interaction can be assigned to most areas in life. Look at sport. You could assume that most people don’t get involved because there is limited positions available in clubs, but the fact is that we love to watch more than become part of the action.

Even here on TechLeader we can see evidence that the ratio of comments to hits per article resemble the 70/20% ratio mentioned.

Facebook is the same, you add an application and forward it to friends via invite. How many actually partake in the application. You create a group and send invites for friends to join. I would reckon 20% also respond to that.

Very interesting indeed

(Report abuse)

The Source on November 10th, 2008 at 1:00 pm

Maybe watchoing the 70% are participating by payin attention to whats happenin at the social network

(Report abuse)

Techmasai on November 28th, 2008 at 5:50 am

I WISH I had 20% participation! I have a site for small businesses to network - I have thousands of readers and people linking to my articles but almost no contributors.

The few who publish are doing it for commercial reasons - advertising or building web traffic or seeking help. No-one (from South Africa) seem to contribute simply because they can offer help or answer a question - they all have an agenda.

(Report abuse)

April on April 19th, 2009 at 11:29 am

@thesource Regarding FaceBook - spot on. I’m battling to see a huge ROI for service based companies inside an environment like that. Lots of lurkers. As a customer service channel - I can see opportunity. Otherwise - too much noise.

Btw - sent you guys a mail about your myDL newsletter - no reply. Sies! I was engaging you :)

(Report abuse)

Andy Hadfield on April 20th, 2009 at 6:11 pm

@april - I think it boils down to the age old value equation. Why should people engage with your community? They’ll engage with FaceBook because

a) ego points
b) it’s their friends

But your business network? What’s the value? What’s in it for them? Find that balance and you’ll see the stats improve…

(Report abuse)

Andy Hadfield on April 20th, 2009 at 6:19 pm

Hi Andy.

I seem to have missed that mail. Could you please just mail me directly at thesource[a-t]mydl.co.za regarding the newsletter.

Appreciate it

(Report abuse)

The Source on June 9th, 2009 at 10:44 pm

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Andy Hadfield is a digital native (can’t remember life without the Internet) and is fascinated with the impact it is having on our lives and businesses. An entertaining and compelling personality, Andy speaks with authority and insight about the new shape of life, work and play in the digital world.

Importantly though, he’s not a “techie”! Andy understands the hard realities of business, and delivers pragmatic, realistic lessons from the future, which every business will find valuable. His intensive front-line experience underpins these viewpoints.

He has played in every corner of the digital industry, launching his first startup at age 19 - getALife (gAL) was a social network before the word was even invented. The site was a political and community mouthpiece for South African students between 1997 and 2005 and was covered on every major media platform, including Time Magazine. It also has the dubious honour of being sued by Robert Mugabe.

He then spent the next 7 years honing his strategic skills across a range of industries, including finance, professional services, construction and media. With The Virtual Works, this included building the digital platform that underpins “The Deloitte Way”, a real time strategic assessment, staff engagement and reward programme. He was also involved in creating Africa’s first monetised niche social network (www.designmind.co.za) which drives communication and collaboration across the construction industry.

At First National Bank, Andy helped develop a team to manage digital strategy across the consumer banking segment. This included projects such as corporate crowdsourcing, the bank's first official FaceBook presence, a major overhaul of www.fnb.co.za and a world-class “Amazon-style” online sales system for financial products.

Since 2010, he founded and operates www.OneBigWidget.com, a boutique strategic consultancy and stable of pioneering digital projects. You can find him on www.andyhadfield.com or tweeting his love for cricket, wine and the new style of business on www.twitter.com/andyhadfield.
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