Online participation: who, what, where and why

By Cathy Freeman

Online participation is a strategic key to your success -- whether you are a newsroom, non-profit, corporate brand or citizen journalist. Learn how to engage your online audience and you will see results in your sales, reach and global influence. Answering the following questions will help you better understand who is controlling your organization’s conversations and how you can share more information online.

WHO: Depending on levels of online activity, online participants fall into the following categories:

• Creators – Write and publish content to be uploaded to sites
• Critics – Post ratings, reviews and comments
• Collectors – Gather information through blog rolls, RSS feeds or bookmarks
• Joiners – Create accounts or profiles on sites like Facebook
• Spectators- Consume without creating original content
• Inactives – May be online but have not committed to any site or activity

Naturally, some people are more motivated than others to participate online. The most active creators and critics are considered “influencers” over the remaining less vocal public. A recent survey from Meteor Solutions found that approximately 1% of a site’s audience generates 20% of all its traffic through online sharing. So, the big question is who is sharing information related to your site?

Who makes up your 1%? Companies like Radian6 are available to help us understand exactly what is being said and who is saying it. It delivers exact analysis of our online conversations, pinpointing influencers and brand evangelists.

WHAT: What are your users sharing? The chart below analyzes different participation categories and age brackets and shows what they are doing online. If you are interested in generating participation in a certain age group, enable them to get involved by studying what type of online activity they enjoy. Do they like to write their own content or simply aggregate what they find? Maybe they would rather be sitting on the couch with the remote and a sandwich?

WHERE: Knowledge is useless without the necessary tools. Finding out what your audience does online is the first step. Next, you need to find out where they do it. The chart below shows a breakdown of online sharing, with Facebook leading the way in content swapping.

WHY: Whether seeking a new friend or a self-administered pat on the back, people who participate online expect to receive something in return. Online participators are motivated by anything from anticipated reciprocity and recognition, to a sense of efficacy or a feeling of community. Any one or combination of these factors can drive someone to publish or communicate through the Internet.

Of course, one individual may qualify for more than one category. If a man is filming a video blog, or vlog, that he uploads to Wordpress, he is considered a creator. If he is also keeping track of other people’s blogs and commenting regularly on his favorite blog, he is considered a critic and collector as well.