make a ‘performance’ of your online activities

Wondering how to get attention to your online communications? Interesting stuff here from a new report …

Some US web researchers (Rubicon) argue that online discussion is a poor way to communicate with the average customer, because average customers don’t participate. But it is a great way to communicate to them, because average customers watch and listen.

So you kind of have to put on an online performance to attract and hold their attention.

What do they mean? Well … if you have lots of comments or customer feedback to your site, they reckon proportionately few people actually create them - 80 percent of content is created by 10 percent of users.

The active 10 percent is therefore the group that holds all the power and influence over how your business is perceived online.

“This means it is critical that companies understand who [they] are, and how to take care of them, because they are the companies’ fellow actors in the online performance. … Use your website to reach out to them and make sure their needs are met,” Rubicon says.

To get the most benefit from these active participants on your site, interaction with them should be viewed as performances, because the other 90 percent of visitors will simply be watching passively as an audience. You need to interact with the active users to “educate, persuade, or entertain everyone else”.

“When we say web communities are theatre, we mean that literally — you need to partner with the [actors] and make sure the show looks good. The difference from theatre is that you can’t pay the actors; you have to win them over through love, enthusiasm, and fairness.”

Need to know more? Read the recent Rubicon report here. It’s packed with clearly written, easy-to-read information and lots of great graphs highlighting stuff.