Efficacy And Content-Driven Communities

I don't like content-driven communities. The model is usually backwards. 

In theory it works like this. You get 20 to 50 people creating content for your community, this attracts people to the community. 

The problem is few people want to create content for a non-existent audience. Those that do soon get bored when their articles get a limited response (this is why most bloggers soon give up, they don't get over the no-audience hump). 

People are motivated by efficacy. They want to have an impact upon their surroundings. If few people read and respond, that impact is limited. The motivations dies.

It's hard to get people to contribute content for a community few people visit. You need to build the audience first. It's not a chicken and egg scenario. You can steadily build a community a few people at a time, initiate discussions, facilitate early interactions, and then gradually invite people to contribute regular blog posts. 

It's the audience that attract the content creators, not the content creators that attracts the audience. 

 

Comments

[Peter Davis]

I've gotten pretty good at getting those first 20 - 50, and any good community manager should be able to handle that with a bit of time put in. The hard part comes in sustaining it in the long-term, and scaling. It's not just the first 20 - 50, to be honest, because once you get those first people you're going to have the attrition that every community faces and just to keep where you've initially built up to you have to continually recruit to counter the attrition.

You're spot on about the audience being what sustains a community, but I'd take it one step further. The audience is going to be what will help you counter that attrition as well. The community manager should be able to build up that initial core group, but the skills that you need as a community builder aren't the same skills that you need to build up the audience.

[Bkmcae]

You said the model is "usually backwards". Is it always? If you can, Richard, as a follow-up post, I'd be curious to hear of any "content first" methods that work.