Social Media, Web Communities and Keeping People Interested!

One day, I just got BORED with it...

One of the great challenges in social media and social communities is how to keep people interested in what you're doing.

Most new ideas tend to experience a very distinct spike in activity at the beginning of their life cycle where everybody's excited because there's something new and it feels like it has great potential. But, after a while, things seem to slow down a little bit because you get used to the community and the excitement of "newness" wears off.

This is where the concept of stickiness becomes really important.

Stickiness is that interest factor that exists within a system that makes people come back time after time, long after something is new.

There's a good reason why organizations like Facebook/Meta employ hundreds of "retention specialists" whose jobs are entirely dedicated to figuring out every tiny thing that might make a person spend a few more minutes clicking around on their site.

Gamification and Streaks

It all becomes a game, and people tend to really want to compete, even if they swear they are "not competitive."

For example, I have a fairly long streak going on checking my local weather daily on a particular site because I earn points if I log in every day, and when I've earned enough points at this particular weather app they will actually plant a tree somewhere in my name!

That is just one tiny example of gamification. After all the monetary value/gain of what I do — that is, the reward I get — amounts to fractions of a cent per day. And yet, I experience this sort of "loyalty" because I like the idea that eventually I'll have enough points and a tree will be planted somewhere and I like trees!

Of course one of the longest and most commonly used forms of "stickiness" with social sites is to have a constant stream of new features being rolled out... so there's always something for people to be excited about.

That's tough to carry out, though... and in the case of community building, it tends to be a fairly thankless process that requires you to be relentlessly present to make your community interesting.

Niche Communities and Stickiness

Here on Steemit we have lots of communities, and we also have very large proportion of those communities start off with a lot of interest, get quite a few active users, and then gradually fade away.

Do people just lose interest in a certain topic or is there something else at play here?

The bottom line is that communities make a lot of sense especially when they're centered around a hobby or a particular interest.

As a side note here, hobbies and interests tend to be "sticky," in and of themselves. That is to say, coin collectors who join something like a coin collecting community tend to already be inclined to return regularly because they want to check up on something they really enjoy being involved with.

So what's my point here?

Well, Steemit has a lot of communities and sometimes I can't help but think that if the communities were strong —specifically as they address niche markets from coin collecting, to photography, to homesteading, to knitting, to pet photography and more — they might actually offer a better marketing angle then marketing the venue, as a whole.

I think about some of my own communities that I have joined online.

For example I belong to a Northwest gardening group and I check in with it very loyally because there always interesting tips and things I can learn from fellow community members.

Back in the earlier days of the web I belonged to a number of psychology and self development groups online. Again, this was something I was very interested in at the time and so I would check in with the group practically daily because there might be something new to be learned there.

The real power here is that the groups became self-sustaining without the need for endless notifications and reminders simply because the subject matter was interesting enough to keep people coming around.

If you think about web users in general, consider that not many people think in terms of simply "joining Facebook."

They think in terms of joining a group or following a page on Facebook... not Facebook, itself. I see no reason why our own community would be much different.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!

How about you? How do you feel about communities, as their own drawing point? Are you a member of any interest or hobby groups? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.05.15 02:31 PDT
x773/2007