Chicken and Egg Problem
The chicken and egg problem is a classic for platforms, and communities respectfully. To be motivated to join the community and thrive, value (e.g. other people answering my questions) has to be derived from the community. Yet, in order to reach a point where such value is created, people have to join the community. The more people join the community, the more network effects are generated, the more answers and problems are solved, and the more value the community offers.
There are tested methods on how to solve the chicken and egg problem in platform organizations (communities being a type of a platform). Based on bleeding edge research (Gassmann, O., 2021, The Platform Playbook) some concrete tested methods to overcome this challenge in the scale phase of a platform can be found in the presentation here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dyaanIf5eLhn4YvI2NO1S3ydTQg_aaEhbJIY3rBa3FA/edit?usp=sharing
Initial outreach good practices
Bootstrap the initial content to show value
Ensure a base of frequently asked questions and helpful answers are present on the community before reaching out to individuals to join. The team (community managers, close peers) ask and answer the questions that would bring the most to the local community. Through the bootstrapping the value of the community is evident before many external users have joined.
Example
🇨🇠Swiss Community: the initial team created ca. 2000 questions and answers internally to ensure the liveliness and the value for externally entering individuals to join the community.
Partner up: experts drive demand and quality answers
Partner up with strategic organizations in the local country helps boost the outreach of the community and the demand through expert content.
A network of trade experts can bring high quality expert answers, as well as can drive demand for joining the community. They also serve as multipliers by sharing about the community within the own network.
Example
🇨🇠Swiss Community: we have a partnership with the Swiss train company. If there is a question regarding mobility, we ask the Swiss train operators to answer the question directly in the community.
These kinds of partnerships drive demand. Since we don't have a team that can be online and giving expert responses, utilizing partnerships that can plug in here would boost the community.
We have about 100 experts that answer more complex questions. The way forward is to provide access to the community for specific partners. E.g. in Switzerland we are in discussion with a pharmacy that has home care teams that visit people at home. They realise they use a lot of time to answer questions... The pharmacy could use our community to communicate and solve problems online and make them public in order to reduce costs.
Engage local media
To reach many new followers, the big bang media strategy is a strong one.
Selected and relevant local media is engaged to create a big bang.
However, there is a difference between outreach and engagement: through the media work initial insight and awareness about the community is gathered, but to join and engage a combination of the other strategies is needed. Â
Identify the community a leader, a person who can galvanize the community and build the capacity of that person (give a position to develop the community in advance)
Icon from the disability sector - DIY solution challenge
Social media groups integration
There are many social media groups per disability type, yet none that work and exchange across disabilities. The synergies of knowledge, however, across disabilities, are huge - especially around inclusion, mobility and other living themes.
A way forward is to collaborate with existing social media groups and seek ways to be complementary.
Social media groups focused on one disability type can be used as a way to gain input: what questions are most burning within your community that we can cover? Would you be happy to join us?
What would be of service to you if you would come to our community? Similar topics are discussed here.
What would you need at work? What is the common ground? Offer information and discussions around the common ground.Â
Two-fold approach
Identify from the community a leader, a person who can galvanize the community and build the capacity of that person (give a position to develop the community in advance)
Icon from the disability sector - DIY solution challenge
Forum good practices
There are good examples of practices on the forum which contribute to driving engagement.
Welcome section: drive the user journey from the start and create a welcome space for the new users to start their community experience from.
Orientation video and storyboard: Create
Orientation documentation: