Filling your network with members is often the most challenging part of building a network. In particular, getting through what we call “The 150 Members Chasm” is at the centre of this challenge.
What is “The 150 Member Chasm”? This is the most tricky period to building membership. Once you get beyond 150 members you generally find your network will have sufficient activity to keep it fresh and alive all by itself. However, building up to 150 members requires some effort from the network owner and his or her moderators. As a network owner you have to be prepared to put in some work to seed your network – networks rarely seed themselves. But don’t worry, there are a few very straight forward things you can do to get things going.
Adding relevant content in the form of blogs, news stories, photos and videos is critical to ensuring your members arrive in an environment that is interesting to them. This comes down to the efforts of the network owner – however our GO Pro Services directory does offer a GO Content service where for a small fee we can help you along the way.
When new members sign up, why not engage each of them with a personal welcome email? Or use our internal network messaging system and add a comment on their profile wall? You might even want to engage them on the chat system by “just wanting to say hi”.
One great shortcut to getting your community populated is to import your database of existing members, so they all have a profile setup before they even arrive. You can do this using our GO Import service. See the Pro Services Directory for more information.
Of course, you can use the Invite Members functionality to invite everyone you can think of to your network. Plus, it won’t hurt to encourage your members to invite their friends using the same tool. And don’t forget to send out reminders to members to revisit your site using the ‘Message all Members’ feature in the Admin Centre. You’ve really got to actively market your network.
So if you invest some time and break through “The 150 Member Chasm”, it is likely to pay dividends down stream with a successful and thriving community. Good luck
Advertisement
