Hook New Members When They Register

Give every new member a small job to tackle when they join.

This gives all members ownership over a tiny piece of your community. It gives new members the chance to feel involved and build early relationships. It gives new members a taste of early success.

You might task a new member with rounding up the latest industry news. Or you might ask one to create an OPML file featuring you all the blogs of your members.

You might ask them to moderate the newcomers forum or translate your content to an overseas audience.

Perhaps you can give them the arduous role of talking to a group, spotting a problem, and giving the job of solving it to the next new member?

Comments

[Charlie]

I actually really like this idea, but am thinking about the people who will say "Are you serious? I've got homework before I even have a chance to look around?"

Maybe another post could be the different levels of responsibility you give them over the life of their membership.

[Richard Millington]

That's true. But it's voluntary at best. You don't have to do a thing if you don't want to. It helps weed out the people who just want to be registered members from the people who are going to actively participate.

It gives immediate direction. Instead of joining the community and thinking 'now what', it provides a single step to participating.

You can take this further and add a feedback thread for the project.

[Ken Allan]

Kia ora Richard

Thank you. I like this idea and I'm going to try it out. I have a closed blog of employees who are (to be) working as a team. Engaging them is difficult, though they all started off with good intentions. As more members decide to join in I will hook each one with this - I guess it's got to be something they come back with and comment on - and this is good.

Ka kite
from Middle-earth