Following up on my previous entry questioning the Democratization of Participation, I came across a blog entry in my feed reader discussing an interesting report on Social Technographics that was compiled by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research. The study surveyed 4,475 US adults in December 2006 and 4,556 youth in October 2006 to learn about their use of Social Computing technology adoption. From these results they were able to break users into a six-rung ladder based on level of participation. The higher up the ladder, the more engagement you have from the individual.

“Creators” (13%)

Publish Web pages, publish or maintain blogs, upload video to sites like YouTube.

“Critics” (19%)

Comment on blogs, posting ratings and reviews.

“Collectors” (15%)

Use RSS, tag Web pages.

“Joiners” (19%)

Use social networking sites (MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.).

“Spectators” (23%)

Read blogs, watch peer-generated video, listen to podcasts.

“Inactives” (52%)

Everyone else that does not participate.

It is also worth noting that these stats are not an all or nothing affair. A user could be a creator, collector and spectator. It just depends on how they engage with your website and others as well. I am attempting to get a copy of the full report as I think there is a ton of great information that could be gleaned from it.

On one of the projects that I am responsible for we are looking at very similar characteristics to determine how our members are engaging with our virtual communities e.g. (SIGs - Specific Interest Groups). We are trying to determine how our members are consuming and participating in these communities and whether our SIGs are delivering a consistent level of value. Where there is a gap between value and service we are trying to determine how best to bridge the gap. It is a year long project and we are only 5 months into it so there is much to learn.

This is an emerging area of study that could really help your association get in front of the social media wave and perhaps make some solid decisions regarding how you should best engage your membership. More analysis to follow.