You Need Community Members To Cross A 3 Week Hump

I'm a member of 37 online communities I've joined and no longer participate (that I can recall). That’s a big number. 

The majority of these I joined, visited a couple of times, then forgot to keep visiting. These communities had something that interested but didn’t engage me long enough to become a habit. 

Joining and forgetting isn't the exception, it's the norm. The majority of people who join communities around the world don't participate after the first few days. They simply forget. That's a remarkable opportunity to boost participate and the number of active members.

When a member joins, you need to keep them visiting, daily, for 3 weeks. If you can keep members visiting your community for 3 weeks you can bet on them to become permanent members. 

But you need to plan out a series of activities to take members through this hump. You need a newcomer of the month, personal reminders of upcoming discussions (not mass spam), you need to introduce them to others they might get along with. You need to get them to contribute their opinion on debates. It's really hard work, but the reward is a member for life.

There are plenty more ideas here to keep new members hooked for 3 weeks. It's the biggest opportunity out there. Seize it.

Comments

[jgraziani]

Interesting idea, Rich. It's commonly believed/accepted that anything you do every day for three weeks will become a habit, so it stands to reason that this applies to visiting an online community as well. I'd like to know if anyone has put this to the test -- please comment if you have. Like Rich, I've joined many communities that I've never visited again. But it's an interesting concept.

[Andrew McFarland]

Basically you have to add value to the user. If you were getting a benefit of some kind from the 37 communities, you'd still be participating. Easier to say than do. But critical.

[Steph H.]

I agree with Andrew McFarland - providing value is the key. The value can be monetary or as simple as entertainment value. But, just as when times get tight and people stop spending money on non-essentials, when time gets tight, people stop "wasting" time on things they don't value.

I have a few criteria I use when deciding on what to spend my time on. Following are those I use when deciding whether or not to follow, and participate on, websites, blogs and forums:
1. Does participating (reading, posting, passing on links) enrich my life (help to make me a more positive person) and get me closer to my goals (growth, learning, sharing, giving back, etc.)?
2. Does participating add to my base of knowledge in a meaningful way (not just add to my store of "fun facts to know and tell - think Rosie Perez in White Men Can't Jump)?"
3. Does participating bring me happiness and/or change my life in a positive way?
4. Do I value what the owner of the site has to offer? And, this has to be ongoing - don't bait me with insightful content that applies to my desire to learn about your topic(s) and/or expertise and then start venting about something political or unrelated or you will lose me...for good.
5. And last, but very important: prove to me that my time is as valuable as yours - proofread your content before you post it! Yes, this is a personal pet peeve, and perhaps not so important to others, but once I see a typo or glaring grammatical errors in your content, I believe you don't value your brand and can't be bothered to proofread your material, and I likely discount the validity of what you're communicating.

[Mark Kilens]

This is so true and I can relate. It's all about content and engaging them with the content. Does the content will help the solve a problem, give them advice, make them wanting more? To have a great community you must be sharing great content and always creating more.

Mark K.

[Gerardo Dada]

The fundamental problem is that every brand would like to be the host of a community around their products and that is simply not realistic.

There are many dead bodies in community land. We should (as an industry) spend more time looking at failures and not so much about the new shiny stuff.

I recently blogged about this topic - would appreciate your thoughts
http://techmktg.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/the-question-no-one-is-asking/