How Big Should Your Community Be?

Organizations which try to grow their communities as large as possible end up with less active members than those that set a clear target. 

When you set a target, you treat members better. You have a finite supply. Your members are a precious resource. Your emphasis shifts from recruitment to retention. Your actions change from external promotion to internal recognition, co-operating and ...

How big your community should be?

First, estimate how much time it will take to keep every member active. Perhaps 5 minutes per member, per month. Divide the community manager's time by that number. If each member will take 5 minutes a month, then 2000 members might be a realistic target. 

You will adjust these figures as the community develops. The community might become more self-sustaining. The community manager might not need to spend as long building personal relationships with members to keep them active. Members might keep each other active. You might add more community managers. You might decide to include a few additional members when you have more time to do so.

Your community should be as big as your community manager can sustain, no bigger. Set a target and focus on the members you have. Untapped potential is better than wasted potential.

Comments

[Matt Rhodes]

Hi Rich,

I guess another way of looking at this is that you need to make sure you resource your community management team to dedicate real time as your community grows. Capping the size of your community based on current resource available seems to me to put up false barriers to the growth you might see in active members over time. You might end up with a much bigger active community than your current resource allows and that might be a good thing. Just hire resource to meet this, don't cap the size of your community artificially.

Matt
FreshNetworks

[Kate Gilbert]

Hi Rich,

As we have discussed before, I think this approach to the size of a community is too insular and misses a significant opportunity to consider lurkers or observers as a part of the community. McKay et al (1998) designed and studied a program that included an online community for people with diabetes and when surveyed, 93% of the lurkers said they found simply ‘lurking’ helpful in managing their diabetes. I am currently conducting a study which is likely to show lurkers value and gain benefit from this as well.

In another study, Zrbiec and Jacobson (2001) identified that 7.55% of all users of an online community for people with diabetes posted messages while 92.45% only read messages posted by others - it's rough but that gives you the beginnings of being able to estimate the true size of a community. Food for thought I hope ....

[Richard Millington]

Hi Kate,

If you want a community with a lot of lurkers, then by all means keep it open and aim for growth. If you want a community where most people are active, then put a limit on the size.

[Richard Millington]

Also, I don't see why this would affect lurkers. Unless you close the community behind a password, they can still see the messages.

[twitter.com/5forFairness]

I hadn't thought of building my community in terms of giving each member 5 minutes of attention a month. The specificity is very helpful. Thanks.

PS And to Kate above, the problem with lurkers is that they GET value from the community but do not GIVE value in return. My challenge is to find ways to encourage lurkers to become active. If they don't, they are essentially parasitic.