Community members that aren’t self-motivated, are motivated by rewards. You need to create these rewards.
These members are motivated by 4 things, fame, money, sex, power. Putting sex aside, your rewards need to align with these motivations. Here’s some ideas:
Fame
- Have a hall-of-fame for people who achieve something.
- Organise competitions to help people become famous in your community.
- Have high-achievers mentioned in the newsletter.
- Let super-members write their own columns/blogs.
- Frequently refer back to big achievements by members
- Interview top members.
- Host a member of the week.
- Hold annual awards.
- Have a popularity rating for members.
- Send interesting stories about top members to industry journalists.
Money
- Don’t directly pay money, it’s bad (and expensive).
- Invite related recruitment agencies and HR types to participate in your online community.
- Encourage members to develop products just for your community (branded please, no spam).
- Mention members that have been hired by their community work.
- Keep a list of community members who have been the most successful in their work.
- Tell your members about job opportunities your client doesn’t advertise.
- Let members arrange events for the community and charge an entry fee.
- Create a guide for members that want to earn money from the community.
- Report on entrepreneurs in the industry, and ask for their advice.
Power
- Give super-members moderation duties
- Ask super-members for their advice on key issues and even about your client’s products and services.
- Consult top members when considering what to do about a disruptive member.
- Give these members the power to approve comments/pictures/columns by other members.
- Give members initiatives and projects they can run.
- Let members run sections and elements of the community, even grow a related community using the same technology.
- Invite all top members to a board that makes decisions on community matters. They can vote who joins the board.
- Create a list of members who have these powers – let everyone see.
The great, and remarkable, thing about all these rewards is that they hardly cost a thing. Be generous with them.