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Interesting blog:
Getting Social, and Commercial, With LurkersA new data point for social media has arrived. Congratulations to the person who originated it, for the “fact†has spread like wildfire across the Web. Goes something like this:
99 of every 100 people reading a blog or visiting an online community are lurkers.
Whether it is a scientific, usable data point is up for debate. But here’s the funny thing. Based on my own experience with this blog, I’d say the number is absolutely spot on.
The connotation for an online lurker is not as sinister as in the offline world. You are an online lurker if you read blogs or content in online communities but don’t post or otherwise interact. Academics are studying what some are labeling a phenomenon, to understand it and, I would imagine, to proffer remedies.
Seems like a fool’s errand.
The motivations seem to me the same online or offline. When you go to a town hall meeting, it’s the same few people speaking. When a stoplight stops working in town, only one or two motorists will bother to call a municipal department - the rest will sit in the resulting mile of traffic day after day. There are a billion more examples. Apathy, time constraints, lack of resource, fear, who knows?
This became of interest to me when I read an excerpt from Marketing Sherpa’s (www.marketingsherpa.com) 2008-09 Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide. One of the many interesting topics it looked at was the sources IT people use to get information prior to a purchase of technology.
Of close to 350 respondents, the top choice for what Marketing Sherpa called “interactive†information sources was online user communities at 45%, far ahead of other venues such as webcasts and trade shows.
There is a new article out every day by some social media “guru,†saying your company must start blogging and getting involved in social networks. Based on the Marketing Sherpa study, you’d think the guru was a genius. But I’ve yet to see one of these folks address the lurker issue.
The Web is now the media of choice, right? The one that is most accountable, where “every click can be measured," right?
The next time your social media consultant hands off a strategic recommendation, make sure you ask him/her what the strategy is for lurkers. My guess is you will see more dissembling than a politician caught with a “wide stance.â€Â
Launched in August 2010, TheMetropreneur.com is a local online resource devoted to small business development and entrepreneurship. Its aim is to tell the stories of Central Ohio's business community, foster regional economic development and assist entrepreneurs with its resource-heavy focus.