Are there enough content volunteers?

I’m not convinced there are enough content creators out there. To be honest, I’m rather dubious of any marketing strategy that relies upon people creating content for free. That takes an awful lot of will power. Why should they?

How many people do you know that have posted footage on YouTube? Or contribute to Wikipedia? Or any of the rapidly fragmenting wikis out there? What about Social networks, do many really contribute much, if anything, to their subscribed groups? Entered many UGC contests?

A couple of people perhaps? Out of how many?

We’re on course for a social-media correction. A correction where the potential of social media, our ambitions and needs of social media and the limited number of hobby-loving content creators/contributors take a shot of reality. At the moment, I suspect we’re asking a little too much of these passionate volunteers.

Comments

[Stephen Davies]

Where do you think we are on the Tom Murphy PR Hype Cycle?

http://www.globalprblogweek.com/images/2005/tmurphy_pr_hype_cycle.gif

Trough of disillusionment?

[Richard Millington]

Hmm, great question. I've forgotten how much I love that graph.

I think the first 6 in the technology trigger are now just tipping over the peak of inflated expectations.

What do you think?

[Dan Thornton]

I agree that many people and organisations seem to have an unrealistic view of how much user generated content they'll automatically receive, just by allowing it.

But it's important to remember that you don't need 100% of your users to upload content to make it work.

You don't even need 10%

From memory, the stats on Youtube creators is about 1 or 2% of the total audience. Wikipedia is mainly produced by the hardcore 7%. And yet both sites have more content that any normal person could ever get through in a lifetime.

The essential thing is to mobilise the core group, and make it as easy as possible for them. Perhaps monetisation may help, or allowing them to share what they create easily across the wider web, but I don't think the numbers per site is an issue.

What might be an issue is how many variations on a theme can be sustained. How many wikis, how many video upload websites, and how many user generated news sites can co-exist - but that will be governed by figures. The leaders will aggregate and the losers will disappear a la Facebook and Friendster,

[Chris Clarke]

UGC is overrated. Big time.

[Anita Campbell]

Hi Rich, I think you're right on about UGC, except to the extent it serves a purpose as a PR-generator or gets you found in the search engines better.

For instance, YouTube is growing more popular because Google is now favoring YouTube results and mixing them into the standard search results. That's the thing that made me pay attention. If not for that, I wouldn't give YT much weight. But if you were to take the Google-jockeying out of it, I believe much smaller percentages would participate. There has to be a "what's in it for me" for UGC to make sense.

Best,
Anita