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===== How to get members to participate ===== Members tend to join and initially participate in a community for one of six reasons. Each needs a little explaining. ==== To tackle a problem they're aware of (or intuitively feel) ==== There are two parts of this. First, you need to tackle a problem that requires them to frequently participate. Single-topic problems don’t work well. Tackle a bigger life issues. That problem has to be part of a bigger puzzle. This will usually be something that affects our health, wealth, or happiness. Members might ask about the best running shoes in a community about running shoes, but ask most questions in a fitness community. Second, members must already know they have this problem and want to solve it. It’s almost impossible to make members aware of a problem they don’t already know about. The problem must be something that matters to them. If you ask members about their biggest challenges and they don’t mention the problem, don’t build a community around this topic. ==== Take advantage of an opportunity they believe exists. ==== A growing number of communities are catered to helping members take advantage of an opportunity that may now exist. [[http://www.backpackinglight.com/|BackpackingLight]] is an example of this. Every backpacker knows there is new technology out there to lighten their backpacks, they just need a place to go for it. Many members of our CommunityGeek join because they know they could be doing more to use psychology and data to grow communities. Opportunities usually come from changes in the political, economical, social, or technological sectors ([[http://www.businessballs.com/freepdfmaterials/pest-analysis-free-template.pdf|PEST Analysis]]). These create new opportunities people need to make sense of. They usually are places where you want to do something quicker, cheaper, faster, or better. But members have to be aware of the opportunity first. You can’t create the opportunity, but you can use [[https://www.google.com/trends/|Google Trends]]to identify rising opportunities and encapsulate them as the basis for your community. ==== Pursue an existing interest. ==== People join communities if they want to learn more about a topic they’re fascinated by. Most hobbyist/enthusiast communities fall within this category. Many brands try to create communities in this field but soon realise their brand isn’t nearly as fascinating as they might expect. These communities are very hard to create. The majority of them already exist. New ones, provoked by PEST, may come about but these opportunities are rare and difficult for organisations to facilitate. You can identify these by asking what % of a member’s free time do they spend engaged in that activity. Anything more than 3 hours per week might be a winner. ==== Be a part of a known exclusive group within the field. ==== We seem to be very much wired to join exclusive groups within our field. If there's an exclusive group, especially an exclusive group that most people in the sector know exists, we're very keen to join it. Secret, exclusive, groups can still work but are less effective. The most effective exclusive groups are those most people know exist but can’t join. If you have an exclusive group, it’s a good idea to promote it. When you promote it, don’t just promote the composition of its membership too. List it on the homepage of that community. ==== Group norms – and fear of missing out. ==== Once a community has achieved critical mass and beyond, an increasing number of people join not to be left behind. This happens in communities such as Reddit and ProductHunt that achieve super high levels of growth and participation. Soon everyone wants to join to ensure they’re not missing out. At this stage, it’s a good idea to promote the high levels of growth, success stories, and the community’s metadata. If your community is wildly successful, promote the success. ==== To satisfy personal ego needs. ==== A lot of people join a community to satisfy an immediate ego need for validation or efficacy. They join to write a provocative remark. They aim to see an impact and know they have efficacy within the community and agency over their actions. Others join to share a useful piece of advice. They want to be congratulated and feel validated that they have expertise in the topic. These are usually the least healthy communities. YouTube comments might be the most obvious example here. These are specifically the kind of members and activity you don’t want in a community.