Visitors, Lurkers, And Members

Let’s divide those that come to the community into three categories.

1)   Visitors. Those that visit, but are not registered members and don't participate.

2)   Lurkers. Those that have registered, visit, but don’t participate.

3)   Members. Those that have participated within the last 30 days.

Visitors heard something interesting about your community and decided to check it out. They might visit repeatedly. They’re information-seekers. They quite happily satisfy their information needs. 

Lurkers saw something interesting on your platform and decided to register.  Yet since registering (or even participating once or twice) they lost motivation to participate. They have reverted back to their information needs. At some stage, the interest that caused them to register was lost.

Members are those whom have made a contribution in the past 30 days. They keep finding something interesting on the platform they wish to participate in. They're trying to satisfy their social needs. 

Two thoughts here. First, stop using the number of registered members as your community’s number of members. This is outdated. Use the number of people that participate. By the former definition, most of your members might have completely forgotten about the community yet still be counted as members. 

Second, pinpoint the stage lurkers dropped out. Was it after 1 contribution? 2 contributions? 5 contributions?  Design interventions at that stage to keep members engaged.

If you know a larger number of members drop out after 3 contributions, or two weeks, you might have an automated message at that stage about something a member can do at this stage. Perhaps you have a ritual after the 5th contributions or after being active members for 3 months. Maybe you give members access to forums for different specialisms or access to the same forums veteran members usually participate in? Maybe after 3 months they can apply to be a moderator in the community?

Or perhaps you simply have a big event every 3 months? There is no shortage of interventions, you just need one that matches the stage members drop out.

Comments

[Jordi Turró]

Hi Richard,

I like the recommendations you give to try to engage lurkers. However, I think that this group is so large and diverse that it would be very beneficial to split it further and define specific actions for each of the subgroups. After all, it appears that active members only account for 1-20% of the total, so it´s critical to fully understand the characteristics and motivations of the other 99-80%. What do you think of the following split?

* Regular lurkers: registered members that visit regularly, read posts and articles but don't actively contribute. They benefit from the community, are satisfied with their status (meaning that they don't feel the need or don't have the time to become active members) and might have a positive impact to the company (and indirectly to the community) by (for example) purchasing more products.

* Lurkers in their way out of the community: registered members that have stopped participating (or have never participated) and that are losing interest in the community (their visits are declining).

* Lurkers in their way into the community: registered members that are new to the community and are getting familiar with subject, the other members or the way people interact.

These 3 groups are very different and the actions that need to be taken to engage them further might also be very different. I also think that a big % of regular lurkers will never become active members. It's important to accept it, value them anyway and take actions to prevent them from losing interest and eventually leaving the community.

[Alex Davis]

Have you considered social login as a member retention strategy? Allowing members to log using their social network accounts encourages social activity, repeat visits AND provides the company access to their member's social data identifying which social networks they log in through and share the most.

[Vera]

Hi Rich,
do you know references in literature to the typical (average) rate of active members in a community? Can you identify some of this references, please?
In the light of your post, how should we estimate this value, once you said the number of members of the community should not be the number of registers (and in some way I agree and understand what you are saying)?