How to turn the 1-9-90 rule into engagement

A rule about online engagement has floated around the internet for a while, called the Rule of Participation Inequality, or the 1-9-90 Rule. The rule goes something like this:

User participation in any online internet community generally follows the 1-9-90 rule:

• 1% of community members create new content
• 9% of community members edit or respond to content but don’t create content of their own
• 90% of community members are lurkers who read or observe, but don’t contribute

For anyone new to community management, this is a discouraging benchmark. If active participation is this low, what’s the point of creating an online community at all?

For organisations who’ve already launched an online community and don’t see high engagement, this rule might lead them to accept it’s the norm.

If you look at the different types of community members these stands out:

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• CREATORS
  ‍Users who create posts, blogs, and other new content
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• CONTRIBUTORS
  ‍Users who reply to comment on the created content
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• CONSUMERS
  ‍Users who exclusively view or log in to consume the created content and its contributions and offers a rating (Likes) but seldom replies
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• INACTIVE
  ‍Users who have not made any actions in the community in the last year

When we meet clients before a project, the general feedback from their end users has been based on the current system:

• Its too much stuff and links
• People had no idea to get to the information
• People had no idea what was going on in the business
• It was very much siloed so others didn’t know what the other team was doing
• It takes a long time to make changes/publish new content due to a cumbersome process

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Creating engagement

What we have found is removing the clutter and make the interface simple and easy to navigate, has helped in creating engagement.

workplaceON is a role based platform so the end user only sees what is relevant on his/her device at any time.

Letting people know whats going on in the business using push notifications has been an important part of the engagement as well.

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Contact us

Contact us to know more about creating employee engagement.