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3 Criteria For A Private Forum To Thrive

Posted on September 30, 2013 by Mike W.

We recently discussed Why A Private Forum Makes Sense For Many Organizations. A forum is a great way to create a knowledgebase that grows with your organization. And like anything else, a forum grows stronger when it is tended to properly.

We have found that private forums excel when three criteria are met:

  1. Employees at the highest level of the organization must lead discussions and actively participate on the forum.
  2. The organization must possess a culture in which employees are willing to help and support one another.
  3. The platform must be easy to use and accessible across different devices.

When these objectives are satisfied, a private forum will thrive.

The smaller the community, the more important it is for employees at the top to take command and lead discussions. This feeds into the second objective in the above list because it sets the tone for the organization. It shows that communication, collaboration, and the desire to improve are among the company’s core values.

Finally, the “ease of use” component is where Ninja Post comes in. No matter how motivated users are to collaborate, users won’t post if the process is too cumbersome, convoluted, or complex. Ninja Post removes that complexity so that feedback can spread throughout your organization, from to bottom.

Posted in Forum Architecture & Design | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Why A Private Forum Makes Sense For Many Organizations

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Mike W.

Private forums appeal to many organizations because they provide an environment that is safe and secure from prying eyes but accessible to approved members from virtually any device. If your goal is to help employees connect with one another and create a persistent knowledgebase, a private forum makes perfect sense.

Although an email list can be limited to members-only and is relatively secure, mailing list content is not easy to browse, support for rich media is limited at best, and the content is difficult to categorize and search. On the other side of the spectrum, enterprise level social networks like Yammer and Jive tend to be overkill: their complexity can hinder adoption and their vast feature set only makes sense for a handful of the most gigantic corporations.

A private forum launched with Ninja Post strikes a good balance because it’s neither too simplistic nor too complicated. This balance encourages participation and, at the same time, preserves content for years to come. It creates a foundation for progress and improved camaraderie. For example, a private forum allows an organization to:

  • Improve sales. A sales team can quickly disseminate information to one another.
  • Improve company-wide communication. An entire organization—from CEO to front-line employees—can interact.
  • Improve on-boarding of new employees. New hires can get instant advice and feedback from company veterans.

These benefits are just the tip of the iceberg. Nevertheless, they demonstrate how powerful—and just how integral—a private forum can be for many organizations.

Posted in Why Ninja Post | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Lower The Bounce Rate On Your Forum

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Mike W.

One reason popular forums have high bounce rates is because they draw in so many users from Google. We theorize that many users who land on a forum after a Google search leave the forum without clicking around because they’re in a narrow-minded “search mode” instead of a relaxed, open-minded “browse mode.”

Put another way, “searchers” are looking for something specific. Whether they find what they’re looking for or not, they’re likely to bounce quickly. By contrast, “browsers” are seeking entertainment and they’re more likely to stick around if anything at all tickles their fancy.

Although it is extraordinarily challenging to convert someone from “search mode” to “browse mode”, we propose the following techniques to lower the bounce rate on your forum:

  1. Show related threads at the footer of the page or in the sidebar.
  2. Encourage the user to search the forum if he or she did not find what they were looking for.
  3. Make the site impossibly easy to navigate so the user is enticed to view more content.
  4. Invite user to join the forum and explain member benefits.
  5. Display photos recently uploaded to the community photo gallery.
  6. Limit content visibility and require user to log in to view additional content.
  7. Include a “before you go…” popover before the user exits the page.
  8. Use a Hello Bar or WOAHbar to appeal directly to the user and ask him or her to stay longer. Employ cookies to craft specific messages just for the user.

We’ve noticed that forum bounce rates are particularly high for users on mobile devices. This makes sense because users are already low on patience thanks to the small screen, longer load time, and other obstacles wrought by mobile computing. We don’t have a good solution for this scenario. At least not yet.

However, we think the best way to get a “searcher” to stick around (no matter what device they’re on) is to show related content. Proving your forum has high quality content is a great way to introduce the user to the breadth and depth of the knowledge your community has to offer.

Posted in Misc. Forum Discussion | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Funneling Users From Your Main Site To Your Forum

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Mike W.

We recently discussed why users from your main site are likely to become contributors to your forum. Therefore, effectively targeting these users, and shaping their path from the main site to the forum, is essential to growing a vibrant forum community.

The goal we set for our clients is to achieve a 10% click through rate from the main site to the forum. Here are some techniques and tips to guide users from your main site to your forum:

  • Link to the Forum in the primary navigation at top of page. (Well, duh!)
  • Insert a “Call to Action” advertisement in the site’s side bar. A small rectangular graphic 300px wide by 90px tall works just fine. For the text, “Got Questions? Visit the forum!” is a simple and effective nudge.
  • Using the ad slot mentioned above, rotate 2-3 “Calls to Action” to appeal to different types of users:
    • Attract people with questions: “Answer guaranteed within 24 hours”
    • Attract people with experience: “Share your story”
    • Attract people with expertise: “Others need your help”
  • Add a Hello Bar (or the free alternative WOAHBar) to the top of the main page and link to the forum.
  • Display recent activity (thread titles, avatars, uploaded photos, etc.) on main page side bar or in the footer of the page.
Posted in Marketing Your Forum | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Finding Contributors For Your Forum – They Might Be Closer Than You Think

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Mike W.

Participation inequality is a tough nut to crack. Tough, but not impossible. In fact, contributors (and possibly even some “heavy contributors”) might be closer than you think.

We have found the best users—those who we can count on to register and contribute in meaningful ways later on—are often funneled into the forum from the parent site. At least, that’s how they discover the forum for the first time.

In a typical example, most visitors in a given day come in via Google and other search engines. A small percentage of these users register, but most bounce. They’re in search mode; not contribution mode. It is very difficult to convert this type of visitor into a contributor.

Another cohort of users—most often users with existing forum accounts—enter the forum via a direct link. E.g., they have the forum’s URL bookmarked in their browser, they’re prompted by an email alert, or they enter the URL directly.

Finally, a third significant set of users enter the forum from the main site. It is this third group that is especially interesting because these users are likely candidates to become contributors.

We can think of several reasons why this is true:

  1. The user already trusts the site and knows the brand.
  2. The user is fascinated by the subject matter and wants to engage with like-minded individuals.
  3. The user browsing for entertainment (as opposed to actively searching).
  4. The user has a question about the subject.
  5. The user has knowledge to share about the subject.
  6. The user wants to share an accomplishment.

While users that land on the forum via Google (who are most likely to bounce without registering or posting) meet the fourth criteria listed above—that is, they have a question about the subject—they often do not have enough trust, spare time, or fascination to compel them to participate.

Users who are already browsing your main site don’t suffer from these same limitations. They have a different same mindset. For this reason, we recommend directing visitors from your main site to your forum because, once the hit the forum, they are likely to participate.

Posted in Marketing Your Forum | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Forum Software And The Power Of Weak Ties

Posted on September 3, 2013 by Mike W.

Thanks to inspiration from the book, The Power of Habit, we recently examined how strong ties, weak ties, and a sense of identity can be used to understand how forum communities start from a small group, grow to achieve critical mass, and eventually become self-propelling knowledge machines. Perhaps the most interesting and surprising part of this framework is the power of weak ties.

You can think of “strong ties” as your closest circle of friends. People you see all the time and interact with most often. Weak ties are more like casual acquaintances or friends of friends. This might defy expectations but it turns out that weak ties are extraordinarily important when it comes to sharing news and novel information.

To illustrate the power of weak ties, Habit author Charles Duhigg cites research by Mark Granovetter, a pioneer in the field of social phenomena. In the 1960s, Granovetter studied how a group of 282 men found their current job. Granovetter determined that weak ties were crucial to finding employment because “weak ties give us access to social networks where we don’t otherwise belong.”

Weak ties are absolutely critical for news of job openings to spread from one clique to another. However, the power of weak ties is not limited to news about job openings. It is equally relevant to the way habits, schools of thought, and social patterns permeate through the world at large.

The power of weak ties is especially pertinent to forum communities. Forums excel at creating weak ties for many reasons. For example, forums connect people who:

  • …are likely to be friendly due to a shared interest.
  • …would otherwise never meet in real life.
  • …possess different levels of expertise.
  • …come from different social circles and parts of the world.
  • …are keen to share knowledge with one another have an eye toward self-improvement.

We know that weak ties are like bridges that shuttle novel information from one group to another. While it could be argued that forum communities are prone to isolation, more like an island in the middle of the Pacific than a diverse and well connected city-state, we believe that open platforms which foster civil discussions, even among users with unique viewpoints, allow weak ties to flourish. When weak ties abound, we like to say they bind together to create a motivational force field.

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Achieving Critical Mass: How Lessons From The Civil Rights Movement Can Be Applied To Forum Communities

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Mike W.

In The Power of Habit author Charles Duhigg analyzes how social phenomena evolve from nothing into powerful movements. There are three phases:

  • Start. A movement starts because of the strong ties between close acquaintances.
  • Growth. A movement grows thanks to the habits of a community and weak ties that bind members of a group together.
  • Durability. A movement endures because it gives participants a sense of identity and/or a feeling of ownership.

“Usually, only when all three parts of this process are fulfilled can a movement become self-propelling and reach a critical mass,” Duhigg writes. In the book, he uses this framework to explain why Rosa Parks’ act of civil disobedience changed the course of history while others jailed for similar offenses prior to Ms. Parks did not lead to protests, boycotts, or sweeping social change.

Ms. Parks was unique because her friends and acquaintances spanned diverse social and economic circles. “She had what sociologists call ‘strong ties’—first hand relationships—with dozens of groups throughout Montgomery that didn’t usually come into contact with one another,” the author writes. Thus, when she was arrested many different people were upset.

As outrage over her arrest spread, peer pressure kicked in which unleashed the power of weak ties. “Peer pressure on it’s own isn’t enough to sustain a movement. But when the strong ties of friendship and the weak ties of peer pressure merge, they create incredible momentum. That’s when widespread social change can begin,” according to Duhigg.

The author goes on to explain how Dr. Martin Luther King helped convert participants in the Civil Rights movement into self-directing leaders. This created social patterns that, over time, “expanded to other places and groups of students and protesters whom King never met, but who could take on leadership of the movement simply by watching how its participants habitually behaved.” King and other leaders instilled a sense of identity and a feeling of ownership to participants in the Civil Rights movement (most notably through non-violent resistance) which strengthened the movement and helped it endure over time.

We believe this same frame work is applicable to forum communities. A successful forum often starts with a small close knit group of friends, grows into a larger and more diverse community, and eventually becomes a self-propelling “knowledge machine” that lives on its own accord, even after its earliest members move on.

Posted in Misc. Forum Discussion | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Why Does The Participation Rate Matter? (Hint: It’s All About The Network Effect)

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Mike W.

They say “excellence” can be defined as a lot of little things done right. You could say the same thing about achieving a high Participation Rate. There are countless “little things” that draw users into a community. Some are obvious, like making the “sign up” button front and center. Some are more subtle, like making the user interface easy to grasp. Some are more meaningful, like concentrating activity so that prospective users can be assured of a reply. Countless little things just like those mentioned add up over time and make a big difference. But aside from sheer embarrassment, why does the Participation Rate matter?

The Participation Rate matters because of the “network effect”: the bigger the network, the more valuable it becomes. But the kicker is that the value doesn’t increase linearly; it increases exponentially. To understand this concept, it makes sense to examine the value of each registered user. To quickly determine the value of a registered user, we can use the following formula:

Average Revenue Per User = Monthly Revenue / Monthly Active Users

For a forum with 500 Active Registered Users, it is reasonable to expect revenue of $200 per month. This makes the Average Revenue Per Active User $0.40.

For a forum with 1,000 Active Registered Users, it is reasonable to expect revenue of $500 per month. This makes the Average Revenue Per Active User $0.50.

For a forum with 2,000 Active Registered Users, it is reasonable to expect revenue of $1,500 per month. In this case the Average Revenue Per Active User is $0.75.

The value of each Active Registered User increases as the network grows in size. In other words, each time a user registers, the Average Revenue Per User goes up. Thus, a new user today who stays engaged long term is significantly more valuable than a user that registers later on. For starters, it makes it easier to attract more users. Plus, it enhances the value of every user who came before.

These are just “back of the envelope” calculations but they’re important because they demonstrate how improving your forum’s Participation Rate (i.e., enticing more users to register, and keeping them engaged) can lead to exponential growth fueled by the power of the network effect.

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Overcome Participation Inequality With A “Bottom Up” Approach

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Mike W.

A couple months ago we examined the Minimum Traffic Requirements For A Successful Forum. The economics of forum participation are downright brutal: only a certain percentage of users will click through to your forum from your main site, and only a certain percentage will contribute. This type of “top down” analysis is useful, and a good barometer that can predict whether or not a forum will take root.

Participation Inequality occurs because “power users” are rare, only about 1 in 100. “Intermittent users” are only 9 in 100. Therefore, a “top down” analysis indicates you need 500 users to capture just five power users, and 45 intermittent users. That’s a lot of traffic for a small number of users!

By contrast, another way a for forum owners to think about starting a new forum is to examine their user base from the “bottom up.” How many prospective “power users” are in your immediate network? You can invite these users to your forum to get the conversation started. A site owner that invites 50 highly motivated contributors (i.e., working from the “bottom up”) is likely to fare just as well as the site with 500 random visitors.

A good example is a site owner that leads a small sales team of 50 people, who are geographically dispersed. The sales team members are highly motivated and willing to help one another. While there is still going to some degree of participation inequality, each salesman has something at stake and is therefore likely to contribute. Another example is members of a paid subscription service. As paying members, they are bound to be highly motivated regarding the topic at hand.

These examples indicate that forums can work well, even for small groups when there is something to be gained by participating. (E.g., respect from colleagues, approval from boss, improved sales strategies, hints/tips/tricks, etc.)

Note: Thanks to Dan Ekenberg for the inspiration for this post!

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Five Things That Cause A Low Participation Rate On Forums

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Mike W.

Whenever we see a forum with an abysmal participation rate, we cringe. It makes us feel embarrassed because it indicates missed opportunities for serendipitous flukes. In the screen cap below, you can see the percentage of registered users is 1.73%. That is not a number to be proud of. We prefer to see the PR in the 10-20% range. While it gets more difficult to maintain a high PR as a site grows in popularity. For a site with 500 users on the site at once, a PR of less than 2% is downright abysmal.

A low Participation Rate has many causes. Some common culprits:

  1. Hidden sign up button.
  2. Confused by user interface.
  3. User is concerned he or she will get a prompt reply.
  4. User is not confident he or she will get an accurate or helpful reply.
  5. User is afraid he or she will be rejected for being dumb.

These causes typically fall into two groups: it’s either too hard to participate or the user lacks sufficient motivation to participate.

With Ninja Post, our goal is to address both of these issues. First, by making the forum software impossibly easy to use. And second, by taking steps to create a vibrant and welcoming atmosphere with regards to community management. For sites lucky enough to have tons of traffic we believe strongly in doing everything in our power to draw as many users as possible into the conversation.

Posted in Forum Architecture & Design | Tagged | 1 Comment