Thou Shall Not Lurk
Lurk: The act of lurking; to hang out or wait around a location, preferably without drawing attention to oneself; to view an internet forum without posting comments.
The internet has too many lurkers. In fact, about only 1% of people actually participate through comments. According to Wikipedia: “In Internet culture, the 1 percent rule or the 90-9-1 principle reflects a theory that more people will lurk in a virtual community than will participate. This term is often used as a euphemism for participation inequality in the context of the Internet.”
We think there’s something fundamentally wrong with this scenario. Without a push/ pull relationship on our blog or any social platform for that matter, we end up having a conversation with ourselves. Lame.
Sure, you read what we have to say, but by not contributing to the conversation you do yourself and other readers a diservice. Maybe you can carry the idea further, or at least give others the ability to learn about you and your company. Go ahead and slap your url on your comment, I want people to link to your site from ours.
Obviously you found us and we wrote something thought provoking enough for your to stay a while and read. Do you like it? Hate it? Do you forward it to others? Surely you have something to say. Everyone does.
Need help figuring out what to say? Try following Mike Sansone’s Twitter list, aptly named “Conversation Conductors” - and while you’re at it, go to Mike’s blog and comment.
We’re changing the game. In order to reduce lurking and increase participation on our blog through comments, Lessing-Flynn’s AdMavericks are starting the inaugural “Commenter of the Year” awards. We’re not saying what the award will be, but we think your opinion is valuable, so give it to us. We’ll give out the award at the end of this month, so you have plenty of time to comment
The commenter of the year will be awarded at the end of this month, so get your comment on, say something, be relevant, provide value, make it happen!
Author: Josh Fleming
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Pingback on Dec 3rd, 2009 at 2:04 pm
[...] social media glory, sponsor, ted's coney island, The Brand Chef, timberpine As I mentioned in our last post, we are going to award a commenter of the year award. Since that post went up, nine new comments [...]
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Pingback on Dec 29th, 2009 at 10:53 am
[...] rightstuf, roxi copland, test of time design, timberpine A few weeks back we announced the 2009 AdMavericks commenter of the year contest. The response was just what we hoped for – tons of comments on our blog. Congrats to all the [...]
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Pingback on Dec 31st, 2009 at 6:49 pm
[...] challenge: to put an end to the relentless lurking throughout social [...]
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Pingback on Aug 26th, 2010 at 11:17 am
[...] via admavericks This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Bookstore Lurkers, New York City, Pests. [...]
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December 1, 2009 at 2:20 pm
The last part is essential, say something, be relevant, provide value, make it happen. You should but that in bold! Or caps lock…
December 1, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Sometimes I’m too dumb to comment..so I read and digest and when my balls are big enough I’ll leave a comment. This social media game has a lot of players and I’m the freshman sitting on the bench studying the plays
December 1, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I think participation is limited to how innovative, progressive or offensive the blog is.
For example, I am more likely to post on a controversial topic, or something that pushes the envelope, rather than something I agree with. If I agree completely with your post, and feel you already nailed it, I most likely have nothing to add. (Unless people want an “atta-boy”)
Addressing the 1% could that be the amount of blogs that are truly introducing innovative content or pushing the envelope? Could it be that only 1% of blogs are WORTH talking about? Could the bloggers be the problem and not the readers?
December 1, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Great call to action and contest idea! I think you hit the nail on the head when you say, “say something, be relevant, provide value, make it happen.”
I think there are some people who comment too much because they like the sight of their own online presence and don’t provide relevance or value for the community.
Some lurkers may be gun shy because they believe they don’t have anything valuable to add to the conversation. But then you can always start a cool contest and voila! people come out of the woodwork.
December 1, 2009 at 3:29 pm
So I’m de-lurking here, though we’ve chatted a bit via Facebook and Twitter.
In my opinion, most people lurk because they do not feel comfortable commenting, for various reasons. For someone in my situation (trying to make a career change and get my foot in the PR door), it can be quite intimidating to comment on something in which you’re not experienced. That little voice of doubt in your head can be quite loud and insistent (i.e. Should I be commenting on this? Will I sound stupid? Do I have anything of value to add to the conversation? Will they lose all respect for me? etc.). To overcome that, I suspect I just need to get over it and take the plunge. How else will I learn, right?
Another reason, and this is more prevalent on sites or blogs where there is a lot of passion and opinions, is that a few people can be loud and strident, and argue back and forth trying to make their point. Those few people can effectively make the commenting environment difficult for those that are already wary about commenting. Mo Ryan, the excellent TV blogger for the Chicago Tribune, has a rule on her site called the “Lurker Rule”: The commenting environment must be such that someone who is visiting for the first time can feel comfortable commenting and not worry about being shouted down by the rest of the group. If someone breaks the rule, she won’t publish the comment or will delete the offending portion. (This only works, however, if your blog is set for comment moderation and have the requisite time to moderate.)
I’m interested to hear what other people suggest to get people out of their shell and start commenting on the Internet. Maybe we’ll start the next Internet revolution.
December 1, 2009 at 6:01 pm
@SheenaLara – your wish is my command. Check it girl.
Katie – you’re only as freshman as you want to be. : )
Justin Brady – that may be the most interesting perspective I’ve read all day. Give me good content or give me death!
Caroline, you wrote: “I think there are some people who comment too much because they like the sight of their own online presence and don’t provide relevance or value for the community.”
- there may be some truth to that, self promotion vs. valuable content can be a slippery slope. However, if you’re reading our blog, we’d like to get to know more about you, by commenting I actually have the opportunity to enhance an online relationship.
Megan – Good points, but I think being comfortable is over rated. I know what you are saying about the back and forth arguing, I’m not a fan of that. I don’t think anything major was ever accomplished on YouTube comment areas. : ) I would just imagine you’re at a party and you don’t know anyone. Are you going to get hammered in the corner by yourself? No way, you’ll be all “Hi, I’m Megan. And I blog, we’ll I just started,but check it out http://futureflack.wordpress.com/“
December 2, 2009 at 2:18 am
I am unlurking now. Thanks for the idea:)
December 2, 2009 at 10:28 am
Amen brother. Lurking is nearly as bad as posting an offensive comment (ie…Des Moines Register), while hiding behind a screen-name that does not identify you, just to get a reaction.
I disagree with Justin, all Blogs are relevant and needed, not just 1%, because people Blog for different reasons. But, not all are engaging enough to elicit comments, I do agree there.
December 2, 2009 at 10:57 am
People blog for all sorts of reasons but I’ve noticed that if I don’t invite readers to comment, I get very few comments. A friend of mine blogged an announcement that she was pregnant and got 0 response. She was bummed.
The most comments I see come with an incentive. But those aren’t really conversational.
I do like the possibilities that comments offer to engage in conversations with readers. It just doesn’t happen that often unless the topic is controversial or particularly timely.
I do comment on your blog. Because I’m a talker! Blah blah blah!
December 3, 2009 at 10:30 am
Coming from someone who gets paid to write blog posts and Tweets, I appreciate the encouragement to post comments. This is a great idea! Our blog gets so many views, yet the comments are few and far between.
I know that I, myself, should be better at commenting. In fact, I feel rather hypocritical for NOT commenting on others’ blogs more often. (That’s probably why this generally-irrelevant post is popping up right now.)
Kudos to you for making it interesting and fun. I really hope people take you up on this challenge!
December 4, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I think they key to commenting on blogs is not to prove you can or you should, but to add value to the conversation. I’m not even saying you should agree. But feel free to challenge, contradict information, add to or even totally disagree with a post. As long as you have respect for the blogger and your fellow commentors, you should be well received. Word.
December 7, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Here I am replying to a post from Dec. 1 and it is Dec. 7 already. I get a chance to read all my feeds about once per week, while those who comment seem to do so within a day or two. In today’s instantaneous internet age a blog post that is a week or more old becomes “history” as we all move on to the next great post. Is there a guideline for commenting on a post? How much time elapsed is too much time to comment – 2 wks.?, 1 year? I seem to have misplaced my blog etiquette book. Help us, Ad Mavericks, to resolve this quandry and we shall reward you with ample comments in a timely fashion that are both relevant and valuable!
December 8, 2009 at 9:55 am
Thanks for the comments and the insight folks.
To answer your question Mike Z, I don’t ever think the amount of time that’s past should factor into when people choose to comment. Take for example yesterday’s post about 2010 being the year of the marketer. I’d imagine if I am wrong, somebody might remind me of that in Jan ’11.