The Myth Of De-Lurking And A Better Use Of Your Time

De-lurking is a myth.

It's a tempting myth (f you could just get 5% of your lurkers to become active, the level of activity would skyrocket!), but still a myth. 

It's not going to happen. Your lurkers aren't going to become regulars. This isn't ouropinion, there are great studies too. 

I'm sure you can find a few anecdotal examples of long-term lurkers that became regulars. These are the exceptions, not the rule. 

Members don't read, browse all the available topics, and then decide to participate. They make that decision very quickly. Review the stats in your community for yourself. 

Lurking is the result of two things. 1) A lack of engagement initially and 2) The member's level of interest in the topic. 

The time and effort trying to engage lurkers is better spent trying to engage your newcomers. If you get this right, the level of activity in your community will skyrocket. 

p.s. Our December edition of community best practices is out. Click here to download it. 

Comments

[Chris Jacob]

Love that you cut right to the chase with your opinion on this. I think the same rule applies to other areas like "free trials" - some people will never pay; and focusing on them is wasted time. I forget who said it, but in a recent Mixergy interview the guy was talking about how much effort they put into re-capturing customer who have left (but only recommended investing in this once you had a dedicated sales team).

Cheers,
Chris

[Tommy T]

Exactly, while you're busy trying to cater and entice the lurkers - your current members are being neglected and leave.

Forget the lurkers, if they haven't joined already the likelihood is they never are going to. Deal with it.

Concentrate on your members, let them know how great they are, how important they are. Get to know them, ask them questions, stroke their egos, create a community and a buzz, reward members for contributing, mention them on the homepage, run a Member of the Month award.

Once your community is growing and has a buzz, you'll get your members. You'll get your new signups who jump in to contribute.

Forget the lurkers!