So you've spent all kinds of money to get your horse to the water, but now you need him to drink... and drink, and drink... and drink. Although people are still joining social networks in droves, it's a fact that engagement numbers are down. According to the article "
It's Official: U.S. Social Networking Sites See Slow Down":
"Since December 2006, when MySpace engagement peaked at about 234 minutes spent per visitor, time spent on the site has dropped consistently throughout the year. In December, time spent per visitor saw its biggest month-to-month drop, of about 8.5%, to 179 minutes per visitor per month, down from 196 minutes in November. That equates to a 24% year-over-year drop.
But the pain is not just a MySpace problem. It seems to be an industry-wide issue. The total audience of U.S. social networks seems to be stuck at a low-to-mid-single digit growth rate, while the engagement metrics are falling for just about everyone. Time spent on Bebo.com has been sliced in half over the last four months, while Friendster's time spent has plummeted nearly 75% in the same time period. Overall, minutes spent per site fell 5% in December 2007 compared to the year-ago period."
So what's the problem with engagement? And how do you make your social network engagement numbers absolutely hop? There's no simple answer, but there are some guidelines you can follow if you want to achieve engagement nirvana.
1. Serve Individuals â€" think 'Email'
Today's social networks, MySpace, Friendster, Orkut, Facebook, etc. share one common problemâ€"they're novel. Once the novelty wears off, people lose interest. If you want a supercharged social network your goal should be to make it 'vital'-- as indispensable as email. We certainly can't live without our email. If your social network is truly serving the target audience, they won't be able to live without it either. When designing (redesigning) your social net, make sure your goals are to make your site as indispensable as email. How can this site be made integral to the success of the target audience on a daily basis? What will make this site a must-have rather than a nice-to-have (a 'take it or leave it' site)? What compelling reason will keep the audience coming back for more, again and again, continuously?
2. Be Relevant- think 'Personal Assistant'
If you had a personal assistant, a large part of their job would be to make sure that only the most important people and information are getting to youâ€"to promote while protecting you. Why should a social network be any different? I mean it has ample information about you. It should know what is and what is not important to you, right? I like to think of this in the context of a personal long-tail. Everyone in a social network has a personal long-tail. The most relevant people and information are the 'hits', while everything else fits nicely into the tail of crap-tracks- less-relevant to irrelevant information (spam). Ample information already exists within the context of the social network to determine what is, and what is not relevant to each individual. Relevant information not only has higher value, but higher CPM (relevant ads), and it can, and at times should, be educational.
Four primary types of relevance should be explored: Situational, Profile, Temporal, and Historical.
Situational Relevance refers to the overall site. How is this site relevant to the target audience? Situational Relevance, depending on the situation, can create in itself high membership penetration as well as reasonable engagement numbers. I should note that engagement will still depend to some degree on the interaction architecture and how well it serves the needs of the participants.
Profile Relevance refers to the individual member's explicit references and is used to match them to people and content. References typically include profile data, extended profiles, and explicit keywords and tags.
Temporal Relevance refers to the individual member and short-term patterns based on immediate interests. Temporal relevance is typically derived by tracking repeat visits to the same or similar subject matter, writing repeatedly about the same or similar subject matter, and interacting with the same people again and again. Temporal relevance is based on a need for instant gratification and for serving hot-topics or fads.
Historical Relevance refers to the individual member and long-term patterns based on long-term interests. Historical relevance is derived in the same manner as temporal relevance, but extrapolated over time. Historical relevance typically reflects more of a person's core or guttural values.
3. Exploit Vanity - think 'Hot-or-Not'
Curiosity and vanity are the basis of social networking. Don't forget to exploit vanity on the site. Regardless of all of the relevance techniques, it's human to want to be popular-to be seen as attractive, in high demand, or as an expert in their fieldâ€"especially in a community of peers. Make sure your site has a rating and vanity system that gives the spotlight to the heavy hitters. The vanity component should be designed to encourage participation and healthy competition.
4. Build in a 'Grab'- Think 'Dashboard'
Every social network should have two primary componentsâ€"the dashboard (nerve center) and the browse. The dashboard should always be the very first thing the member sees and serves as the 'grab'. The dashboard should serve the immediate needs of the individual viewer's curiosity. A great dashboard should be dynamic and serve information based on the current state of the community and the underlying activity within the community. Some sites employ dashboard components that continuously surround the member as they use the site. To create a great dashboard you should think 'newspaper headlines' for your community. The dashboard should at a minimum have the following components: what's popular, what's most valued, who's popular, what's new, who's new, and what's most relevant to this particular user. If you want to supercharge your social network, no two dashboards should be the same. What I mean is, the information you're providing each member in their dashboard should individually serve that particular member based on what you know about them.
If you follow these golden guidelines and do them well, your engagement numbers should soar. There's never a guarantee, mostly because people are involved, and every site has a different flavor of people who react differently to different things, but if you follow these guidelines you're almost assured of some level of increased engagement. And, if you iterate, if you learn continuously about your audience and fine tune your site along the way- maybe, just maybe you will reach engagement nirvana.