Last Friday brought another interesting hour of #Cmtychat, created by Bryan Person and Sonny Gill. We had a robust discussion about community management, growing communities, the 90-9-1 Principle and the importance, or lack thereof, of community lurkers.
I stressed the importance of providing content that makes it easy for lurkers to participate: A quick poll, or blog post with a fun question that most people would find irresistible and want to chime in.
While lurkers may not seem important, they are. I can’t tell you how many new members have told me that they’d been lurking for anywhere from 4-8 months before finally deciding to join the community.
One community manager on the chat mentioned that her community had so many new people joining that they don’t really focus on lurkers. I can understand that philosophy but that has not been my experience. I am always trying to impress non-members with our content to encourage them to take the leap from lurker to participant, and then from participant to active participant.
In my opinion, it’s a member drive that never ends.
After all, if you don’t encourage lurkers, how can you grow?
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June 15, 2009 at 7:34 am
Bryan Person
Angela:
We were thrilled to have you as part of #CmtyChat again last Friday. One of the ideas we discussed–and might have been raised by you?–was having a low enough barrier to entry to the community to give those lurkers an easy way to get involved in discussions. It might be a poll or a microblogging-like functionality, but it should be a communication form that a new member won’t be intimidated by. As time goes on and those newbies gain some more courage, they’ll start to create longer-form content.
Hope to “see” you again on Friday!
Bryan | @BryanPerson
LiveWorld
June 15, 2009 at 7:59 am
Sonny Gill
As Bryan said, we’re definitely excited to have such a huge community evangelist on the #CmtyChats.
You make a good point here. I’ve always had the same sentiment towards actual community members and taking care of those that may not be as active as some of the more prominent members, but taking that further to people who aren’t members yet is something that CMs definitely need to keep in mind if they’re looking to further grow their community.
Thanks for this, Angela!
June 15, 2009 at 8:52 am
Angela Connor
Bryan: I was thrilled to be there. I did mention a low barrier to entry during the chat. I can’t tell you how nice it is to have a place to share with like-minded people. What we do is still so new and there is no “one-way” to do it. I’ll see you next Friday.
June 15, 2009 at 8:53 am
Angela Connor
Thank YOU Sonny, for the commitment to providing a weekly platform. I know it will continue to gain popularity I am happy to support your efforts. It is going to become bigger than you could imagine. Just watch. Until Friday….
June 15, 2009 at 9:56 am
Chris Bailey
I remember an argument I once had with a colleague whose expertise is in online security. He claimed that lurkers were “bad” because they weren’t openly declaring their intentions to the community. They were…”lurking.” What the exchange drove home to me is that we really need to coin a new term for these folks. Lurking does have a bit of a bad connotation to it and new folks exploring our space might not care for the label. Ideas? I like browsers, but it gets caught up in the apps like IE.
I also like your ideas for creating low barriers for entry. Once in the space, give a “browser” a chance to explore the social norms of the community. What we find is that one reason why people browse is that they don’t want to look “stupid” in public. So we need to give them ways to play safely at first so they can get a feel for their environment. With confidence, they’ll become more comfortable and contribute to their community more.
June 15, 2009 at 10:58 am
Lisa Randolph
I’ve never heard of #CmtyChat, but I’m interested in learning more about it. I’m the Community Manager for a social site for bankers, and am interested in networking with other community managers to learn how to better grow our community.
Oh, and my two sense on lurkers are that they’re actually quite beneficial. On several occasions I’ve run into someone that refers people to our site and can recall a few hot topics discussed on our site, though I’ve never seen them post in our community. Any suggestions on the best solution to move them from lurker to active member?
Definitely glad I saw this post!
June 15, 2009 at 11:09 am
Angela Connor
Hi there Lisa:
i want to know more about this banking community. Sounds intriguing. Listen, if you are able to join #cmtychat on Friday at 1, you should. Just go to tweetchat.com and log in, and enter that #cmtychat hashtag. I’m glad to hear your thoughts on lurkers because I too believe they are beneficial. Sometimes members can create more nightmares than anyone else. I have some ideas about moving lurkers to active members. Let’s talk offline. I’ll send you an email. Thanks for the comment.
June 15, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Sonny Gill
@Lisa – Bryan and I host #CmtyChat every Friday at 1pm Eastern. We talk on the business of online communities and ask specific questions for the community each week. We’d love for you to join us this Friday
Shoot me an email via my site if you have any questions!
October 8, 2009 at 12:09 am
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[...] of questions from dealing with irrational troublemakers to methods for recruiting new members and luring lurkers into becoming active participants. I answer them all. The private exchanges are great, but those [...]