How Do You Improve Online Community Engagement By 3,000%?

Getting people engaged and involved in an online community is notoriously difficult.  This is such an infamous challenge that it’s been given a name— the “one percent rule.”

This rule of thumb states that only 1% of users in an online community actively create new content while 99% lurk or only consume the content.  This concept started to emerge in 2006 as data from Wikipedia, Yahoo Groups and other online forums started to emerge.

However, we’ve found that the rule doesn’t apply to our customers who use Bloomfire to engage their internal and external communities.  Our content and knowledge based collaboration platform frequently drives levels of  active participation north of 30%.  Here’s why.

Context matters.

Our technology brings people together who are working together to get something done within the context of a business.  Whether it’s enabling sales, onboarding new employees or improving customer service both the producers and consumers of the rich content on Bloomfire have a vested interest in learning and teaching from each other.  Group and individual success is enabled by market dynamics driven by teamwork and sharing.

Content matters.

Rich media is changing how people engage.  While text based communities have proliferated, different people like to share and consume information and knowledge in different formats.   Having a community where video and text can co-exist and compliment each other means more engagement with the type of content that you individually prefer to share or consume.

Mobile matters.

Interacting with a community and content when and where you want to or need to, drives relevancy and value.  Our mobile adoption on Android and iOS is exploding as our communities take connectivity, interaction and engagement with them wherever, whenever they need it.

Simplicity matters.

Ease of use drives adoption and sustained use.  Bloomfire was designed from the ground up around the data and information assets that our customers use to do their jobs.  The simplicity we bring to how content is encoded, stored, shared, amplified and retrieved is our secret sauce.  Our user communities from 5 people to over 100,000 easily deploy and support their communities because the communities support themselves.

Bloomfire was founded on the principal that none of us is as smart as all of us.  The more that we succeed in actively engaging our customer communities, the more we’ll help them succeed.  And ultimately, that’s what matters the most to us.