Acquiring Active Users

A challenge for every online community is getting users to engage and participate. Many sites see an incredibly high churn rate for new users. A common response is to go back and add more features, change the layout, or edit the messaging in an effort to create more “hooks” to participation. But I contend that while all of these things may have an impact, the deciding factor of if a user will engage is the context in which they enter the site.

If a user enters a site through an online advertisement, radio ad, spam, or some other blatant promotional effort, they don’t value that context. In many cases the user sees the site as a means to an end. They are there for a purpose, and will ignore everything else. “I’ll register to get the info I need and leave”, “I only registered to get on the list for an event”, etc, etc. You can have the coolest social networking site, with the best features, and the best messaging, but unless a users intention starts with personal value the conversion rate to active users will be extremely low.

There are two primary entry methods with valued context. The most obvious is through a friend (an invite, word of mouth, etc). This method is basically what built the social networking industry. So I encourage community developers to look for every way possible to encourage users to engage other friends. This means going beyond the traditional “invite a friend” button.

The second, which I think is highly under used, is acquiring users through an affinity group. People have very different affinity groups at different stages in their lives. In addition, everyone doesn’t necessarily have an affinity group. Examples could be, college students and their school, college students and their school groups, post grads and their alumni group, professionals and their company. Whatever it is, there are always groups out there that tie people together with some type of common thread.

The bottom line is when users enter a site through one of these ways, their initiating intention isn’t a “means to an end” but rather a means to explore. The higher valued context gives your incredible features, awesome messaging, and quality content a chance to engage the user.

[tags]Social networking, Social network, online community, community development, users, active users, Brian Balfour[/tags]