chris dumler

Yesterday I began to probe the motivation and incentives community members have for contributing content to the online social communities they are a part of. Creating content takes time and energy and I postulated that there is an expected payout - in some conscious or subconscious form - for this investment. The most common expected returns were money and social capital (including personal influence) but some were as simple as giggles from friends. The question is, how does your product and community help them achieve their expected return?

Richard Millington suggests that many organizations fail at determining this because they work backwards.

They decide what features they want in the community and then try to figure out how to persuade members to use those features.

This is backwards thinking. 

You should begin with identifying the motivational drivers of your audience and then add features based upon that motivation. 

What are the key drivers of participation in your community? Is it the need for achievement? Self-efficacy? Power? Money? Recognition? Fear?

Now, what features would help members achieve these goals?

Your product’s ROI hinges on the ROI your community gains from using it. I don’t believe that it’s essential to determine what every member expects. But you will likely have members that carry more influence than others (even if their interaction is infrequent and their audience is quiet) and discovering the motivational factors they have will likely help focus feature priority and community output.