The Social Organization: How to Use Social Media to Tap the Collective Genius of Your Customers and Employees by Anthony J. Bradley & Mark P. McDonald

Author:Anthony J. Bradley & Mark P. McDonald
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781422172360
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Published: 2011-09-26T14:00:00+00:00

Setting Critical Mass Targets

The success of a collaborative community will depend on attracting participant contributions. In the most successful social media environments, the vast majority of content comes from the community, not the organization. Everyone in the target community is a potential author. It’s up to you, the organization, to entice participants to contribute.

Obviously, not every member will contribute. How many contributors do you need? What percentage of originators, augmenters (those who respond in some way to original contributions), and readers will lead to a productive and effective community? The 1-9-90 rule (or “1 percent rule”) says that for every 100 participants, there will be 1 originator, 9 augmenters, and 90 readers.6

The 1 percent rule comes from experience on the social Web. Since the general public is the target community there, the 1 percent rule won’t apply to all communities. For example, a community with a purpose targeted at employee engineers might require a very different participation ratio. A family using the social Web to keep each other up to date by sharing photos, messages, and videos will also experience a different ratio.

You should determine the level of community participation required for each collaborative community to reach critical mass. This participation target, which will vary for each community, can serve as an overall goal and provide a means to assess adoption success.

For example, consider an organization that wishes to create a community where its salespeople can collaborate around overcoming buyer objections. It might decide it needs a ratio of 10-40-50 per month to achieve critical mass and a self-sustaining community. Applying this ratio to the target audience of one thousand salespeople says there should be one hundred salespeople who originate content every month—say, a question about how to overcome a particular objection—and four hundred people who respond by offering an answer to the question. The remaining five hundred salespeople will simply read what’s been posted. Of course, which salespeople contribute, augment, and simply read will change month to month, so that over time all or most all salespeople will participate.

Community contributions are certainly critical, but participation by those who only read others’ content is also important and should not be undervalued. Reading by itself provides many of the benefits of collaborative communities. Members can learn, for example, how to handle an objection simply by reading the points raised and discussed by others. Here we see the power of a community. It amplifies the knowledge of each individual member—knowing how to handle a particular objection, for example—by making it available to the whole community. A solution to a problem, an innovative idea, an astute observation that would otherwise be lost gains enormous value when the masses can seize and act on it.

The targets you set for critical mass are estimates based on knowledge of the community, its purpose, and the estimated level of activity required for healthy community collaboration. Though they’re estimates, such targets are important. They serve as a goal for motivating people to participate in a community, and so your marketing efforts should be directed at achieving them.

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