I have grown increasingly fascinated by the other discussions that happen in online social spaces.
At first glance the new online landscape is neatly segmented and boxed up:
- Mumsnet for mothers
- Footbo for soccer fans
- Pistonheads for car enthusiasts
- Corkd for wine lovers
- Treehugger for those that care about the environment
Easy!
In theory, all we need do is some quick network mapping using free tools, and we can quickly find the online watering holes for the demographic or community we seek. Bada bing.
Yes, there are issues with this simplistic approach but ones we are usually comfortable with (or at least resigned to) in marketing: that there is no such thing as a typical mother, or car lover, or professional.
But at some level this works – unless we want to get into precision marketing then we accept the benefits and risks of stereotypes and broad brush segments.
Reconsidering communities of interest as something else
These are ‘communities of interest’ – places that people gravitate towards due to a shared interest that goes beyond obvious grouping criteria like age, gender, nationality (sometimes) and geographical location. Some people call them tribes.
But personal experience is fundamentally changing my understanding of how communities gather and interact online. I am finding much more nuance to this tribal social world.
In particular, it’s the ‘off topic’ conversations that have got me interested.
When I first joined the Brighton New Media list some time in 2002 I was new to the concept of Off-Topic but quickly learnt that it was for everything that wasn’t on-topic ;-) The conversations not about digital media but about popular culture, politics, sport, relationships, customer service and shopping – the trivia (and substance) of every day LIFE.
Witnessing the fullness
Now, as a newly keen mountain biker, I have been stunned – there is no other word – by the off-topic conversations in the mountain biking forum I hang out in, Singletrack World.
Here are some conversations from the first two pages of the forum this morning – there are 40 posts per summary page, so these are the highlights from 80 different posts.
Er, nope!
Multi-coloured, multi-faceted, all encompassing. And not about bicycling!
What we talk about when we feel in the right company
This is a mountain biking forum. For mountain bikers. Who happen to also be people. To be citizens, to be consumers, to be parents. And of course they are us. We are them. This specific space (which is dear to me and many others that love mountain biking) is just a microcosm – a helpful mirror or glimpse of ourselves online.
I know this ain’t rocket science, but for some reason to me it feels like an important and possibly lost reminder.
They (we) discuss trivia like backing up Macbooks and pointing brickwork, and deeply personal sensitive topics like their relationships, their health, their beliefs. I’ve left out some stuff out of respect for the community – a wonderful community – because it would feel wrong to air the content more broadly without permissions (although this stuff is all public). It is too intimate to haul some of this into the broad light of day. This is people’s lives.
My points is this
So the point I am working towards is that even in this digital life where we live out the various parts of our lives and personalities in different online spaces, and gravitate towards helpfully neat ‘communities of interest’, we are still not single-issue – we are still humans in all of our complexity and nuance.
Crunching the numbers
I did some quick back-of-fag-packet analysis to try and understand the balance of on-topic to off-topic conversations in Singletrack.
Here’s what I came up with:
The stand out insights were that only 3 in 10 conversations are off-topic, but that off-topic conversations attract a significantly higher level of engagement with an average of 17 responses (though not necessarily 17 different people conversing – it could be two people back-and-forthing :).
So off-topic punches well above its weight in terms of % of overall ‘posts’ – the Singletrack terminology for a member physically writing something, representing 42% of all posts on the forum.
In short:
- Most conversations are about bikes (near 70%)
- Off-topic conversations get nearly twice as many responses
- Overall, when looking at ‘posts’ rather than topics, off-topic is 42% of everything that makes up this community
So where does all of this leave us?
I’d love to know your thoughts, but for me there are a few helpful reminders for me and our clients:
1. Beware the simplistic ‘we found a community!’
Simple as that really. You might get most engagement with your issues, or reach those you most want to reach by thinking more broadly than the classic hang-outs for the hardcore. In my mountain bike forum we share recommendations about health, relationships, laptops and phones, cars (I’ve seen lots, ironically).
2. Consider more broadly where relevant issues might be discussed
See above. So consider not ‘what is the main topic of this space and does it match with our interest’ but instead ‘where do issues like these also get discussed by the people we want to reach’. Don’t think too directly – Don’t Stay In might not be the best (or at least the only) place to engage about drugs, Mumsnet might not be the best or only place to engage about parenting issues. Etc.
3. Recognise the importance of safety and likemindedness in unlocking
What is perhaps hardest to appreciate is how the things that we – as a big organisation/client/person trying to do good – might want to achieve in creating a space for people to talk about specific topics, might be forever prevented by people feeling appropriately safe and at home. With the new online tribal spaces, the level of likemindedness and togetherness seems to foster a spirit conducive to openness and honesty about everything else – the off-topic stuff. If we are trying to create a social platform for a given single-issue, how can we make it safe? Or, recognising this challenge, how can we be more distributed and engage with these conversations across the web as they happen without being intruding strangers and weirdos?
Are there more issues at hand that I’ve missed? Thanks for listening.
8 Comments
ooh, yes, I think this is really interesting too.
someone who has been managing communities for far longer than I’ve been involved in this space was telling me the other day that if you look across communities you actually see many more similar topics than different ones. We were talking particularly about the ‘games’ that communities play but I think that it holds true for many other topics.
It would be great to get a breakdown of the the content of these ‘other’ conversations and see how well they map across a wide range of online communities.
(kind of OT on your OT post but that seems appropriate, huh? :)
Yes, this is interesting. It’s something I try to express when training new community moderators – the importance of allowing people to go off topic in order to solidify relationships and make users feel comfortable in their community, which makes them more likely to return and keep talking in general, which is vital to the success of any community. Some forums are way too strict with their off-topic rules which can lead to stagnation and an emotionless, dry environment.
Really interesting topic Willbo – all too often marketing sanitises people into segments and behaviours into funnels and it seems particularly tempting online because we have all this juicy data describing who, what and when. But people are complicated and lives are messy and thoughts and feelings spill out all over the place.
I love @Leisa’s idea of mapping the content of the ‘other’ conversations… although it would need a cleverer brain than mine to work out how – maybe one for Mr Winton!
@Leisa wicked, wicked point. That is so right. The same conversations across the (digital) land. Will consider how we can map that. It’d be fascinating to see. Thanks for chipping that in.
@Beth another wicked point – the nourishing qualities of the ‘other stuff’. How it makes it real. To try and de-couple them is artificial and flawed. Oh yes. This is so good. I’m learning :)
I agree, we often find the most insightful nuggets lurking in unexpected places. Just like in a focus group its sometimes the quiet off hand comments that can unlock gold for brands willing to listen!
Communities are such a valuable source of research but i think we have a way to go to prove the credibility of such insight. I wonder why research professionals – who’s sole professional purpose is to get under the skin and into the hearts and minds of people – haven’t yet jumped on this?
A great post and solid example you’ve shared above – hopefully it will go some way to building our case!
Great post Will and follow-up guys. I’d imagine that strong and active communities tend to form around subjects that people have strong passions for or specialist interests. In that respect it would be really interesting to be able to identify / access / pool / connect / represent subject matter that doesn’t attract it’s own community. You know the mundane or the transient stuff that pops up in life and then disappears, like (in my case right now), where do I find a good builder (next month I won’t care about this any more) or from my work perspective, who should I do my banking with. It must be this kind of stuff that drives the off-topic discussions that take place all over digital world!
How do we unlock the potential of connecting this ‘second tier’ stuff that will determine where the next communities could be be formed or new communication channels unlocked…hopefully not a natural default to Google!
Yeah, interesting challenge Chris! My feeling is that much of this happens as OT in passion-point communities (like the mountain bike example above).
But when there’s a strong geographical need – for the builder to be local – that’s where there is a gap I reckon, at least for those without a strong Twitter network locally (e.g. 99.9% of the population).
The promise of ‘hyper-local’ still hasn’t really got that useful for most people yet. Hmmm, will ponder more – thanks for contributing :)
@Fiona I like your comparison with the offhand remarks in focus groups – exactly right! Thank you.