Community Balance?

Communities - great power (hello, marketers! :)). Of course, there is an option to make a website (hereinafter referred to as the Site), to put a bunch of interesting things there (on the subject of a future niche brand, let's call it that), make a forum on the site, smoke, and ... And wait :)

The likelihood that, subject to certain technical conditions, the whole kitchen will work - great. We assume that the kitchen is still running: people come, a forum has started, relevant content is gradually being replenished, weak social ties have started - people interested in the subject area have begun to appear.

We assume that the Site (the community, not necessarily with web-2.0-pribabahy, but for sure - with a web-2.0-scheme, when the content of the Site is created by visitors) was created not just like that, but with a marketing aim.
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An inquisitive mind (the owner of the Site) will set itself the goal - “to develop and apply in the household”.

Let's help him? :)

Again - we define goals. It is necessary that:
1. The site was as much as possible "relevant to the people" (in the carcass, it can be said in scientific language :));
2. For visitors to come and stay, i. so that there will be more people ...

Another thought that seems appropriate to me is that if we want to manage something efficiently (actively change the state) and not just use what we have, we need to know the principles. Well, if the principles are few, ideally - one.

Practice (and observation) shows that with regard to the development of Internet communities, there is only one principle: “If you want more people to be relevant, understand the visitor’s motive. And give him what he wants. ”

So, the motives ... It may seem that the motive of the visitor is only one - information. In full accordance, by the way, with the theory of rational choice . Those. the visitor (not yet a member of the community) came to the site, found, learned (perhaps clarified), and ... And left ... What could make him return (except for reminders, mailings, etc.)?

If you follow the mentioned theory, then - nothing, the user's task is solved: the information is found, and, possibly, applied. Is it possible to return it solely for rational reasons? Yes, but only when you need another piece of information on a given topic ... An infrequent case, agree.

But in fact, some of the vast array of thematic sites are simply full of returning visitors (“users”). What's happening? What makes people go back to where they once were?

Here it is necessary to mention that the terms “quality of information” and “experts” are peculiar to the rational approach.

In this dual world there is an antipode to everything. He has a rational approach. Let's call this antipode an "emotional approach." In the "emotional theory" there will be no quality information, there will be no experts. It is on this territory that words live with emotional (rather than rational) coloration.

And if the "rational" theory does not work, then maybe we will try to think about the "emotional" one? If so, an interesting thing emerges (quite unexpectedly, by the way):

The motives of the user (regular user) are not in a rational plane. “Quality”, “expert opinions”, etc. are not important for him. Emotional is more important for him.

This explains the “unexpectedness” of the fact that it suddenly became embarrassing to be an expert - for the masses, experts are not needed :) Because experts are not the people who meet the real needs of site visitors (ordinary people, by the way). :)

This is a paradox - on the one hand, we go to the Network for information, on the other - we don’t need those who are authorities about what we are looking for on the Web :)

So we get a visitor motive. For the overwhelming majority of cases, it is exclusively irrational (emotional) in nature: “against the background of a friendly and sociable environment, some relevant information”.

In other words - "Let the site be a little less professional, but let it be much more friendly." The recipe works :)

To all this text of your humble servant, the article, to which the reference was already made here, was sent to the account of the “balanced concept” .

Confused the words "Balance." Most often, “balance” is when the estimated ratio is close to “50 to 50”. Common sense says that if the motivation is rational and 95 is emotional, then the ratio of “very friendly experts” to “just people” (to those whom our future niche brand is focused on) should be in the same proportion ...

Due to the exceptional importance of understanding the motives of visitors (probably, there is nothing more important than this) it would be great to discuss these motives here. Moreover, this quick-distorted text does not pretend to complete the coverage of the issue :)