The Participation Ladder and Its Impact on Marketing and PR

I'm back from a brief blogging hiatus. This was my first extended break since I started this blog (Micro Persuasion turned three years old on April 19). I read a lot and thought about where I want to take this site in the next two years. If you have thoughts on this, send me an email or leave a comment. It was very refreshing to be off the treadmill for a few days. Now, it's time to get back in the blogging saddle.

One of the things I want to get back to is writing more about technology's impact on media, PR and marketing and a little less on just Web 2.0 by itself. Charlene Li from Forrester gave me just the starting point  I needed. She is out today with a new fascinating report on social technographics.

Forrester segmented the online audience into several different stratas - what they call a ladder of participation. They found that "Inactives" are by far the dominant group (52%). They're followed by spectators, joiners, critics, collectors and last but not least creators. This last cluster, according to the analyst firm, dabbles in lots of different activities but few do all of them. See the chart below for more.

This is the first report I have seen that really delves into what drives and motivates people to engage with the web. It's worth purchasing and it really has got me thinking about its impact on PR and marketing.

While extroverts get all of the attention, the thickest part of the ladder is in the vast majority of people who have no desire to participate. I imagine this number will shrink some in the years ahead, particularly as the generation that grew up with the Web enters the workforce. However, there will always be a meaty portion of the online audience that remains just that - consumers.

This got me thinking: what can the Participation Ladder teach us about PR and marketing? The answer is a lot.

If you work in either of these professions, cut the above chart out and stick it on your wall. For each program, assess where your audience sits on this continuum. Are they inactives, creators or somewhere in between? The key is to then devise the right kind of communication strategy depending on what you discover. Let's put this into action.

For example, let's say you have a start-up that has a new piece of blogging software that bloggers will love. Then you should execute a peer-to-peer program that primarily targets creators, collectors and critics while largely ignoring inactives. This means you can go guerrilla with peer-to-peer program that taps into social networks, blogging and other Web 2.0 communities. Place your chips there. Mainstream media coverage can help here too. Focus your attention on outlets that bloggers read.

However, if you have a tech product or service that has value say for all users, then clearly you want a broader mix that combines the best of new media/mainstream media, all while reflecting the ladder.

This is why I think we're really in the golden age of PR. Technology is flattening the marketing landscape, but there's always a need for smart agencies that can help guide clients in the dynamic two-way world. PR is best suited to thrive in this environment and getting the mix down is where it all starts. I am glad to be working with the leaders who are driving "PR 2.0" and this new landscape is what drives me to give my all.

The Forrester guide is the perfect skeleton, now it's PR's job to add the creative muscles and get the body moving in the right direction.

Comments

[Amanda Chapel]

FIRST!

[Josh Bernoff]

Steve, thanks so much for recognizing our research!

A few things to note:

1. Many (including Forrester earlier) have portrayed this ladder as a pyramid or triangle, with the Creators at the top. But when we looked at the data, it became clear that the people at the top DON'T do all the activities below, which is what a pyramid implies. Furthermore, these are not mutually exclusive SEGMENTS. That's how we ended up with overlapping groups on the rungs of the ladder -- it better reflects the data on what people actually do.

2. We are standardizing this methodology across our surveys in all geographies. This means we will soon be able to calculate the Social Technographics Profile of ANYTHING. Visitors to MySpace. People who live in Japan, or Germany, or Canada. Young people (this data was published in the report). Users of Apple computers. You name it. This is what happens when consumer research meets powerful ideas.

3. The obvious next question is, what does the ladder look like in 2008? In 2015? We believe that people will climb the ladder, but not all of them, and not all the way up. The number of inactives will shrink, but not everyone will become a Creator -- it's just not everybody's inclination to create. In any case, any strategy needs to account for movement up the ladder.

Love your insights!/josh

[Amanda Chapel]

But don’t "ladders" and "pyramids" contradict all the hoopla pseudo pundits produce with the mantra for flattening of the hierarchy? Apparently, hierarchy is a natural and necessary phenomenon.

You might need to rethink that too Steve.

- Amanda

PS The "FIRST" comment above was just so I could claim it a la http://tinyurl.com/22mp6j .

[Angela Nibbs]

First time I have ever commented to a blog - I agree with Josh...I believe the whole point is that the hierarchy is being "blown up." That said - the chart is a great attempt to compartmentalize and give language to what is going on.

[Phil Wolff]

It's great but incomplete.

First, I'd like to see an orthogonal Ladder of Disclosure, from those who pay cash and live off the grid to those wearing live streaming webcams who twitter every bowel movement and blog their bank accounts. The Participation Ladder is tightly coupled with doing things in public. Look at digital ID (OpenID), presence streams (twitter, jaiku), relationship brokers (iotum), pseudonymity and faceted authorization (Vox-like access to content) for clues to consumer behavior and tools for engaging about privacy. Strategies that acknowledge and compensate for privacy concerns always do better.

Second and Third, the participation ladder views the web as the whole Internet. It's missing (a) The Mobile Net, with SMS, mobile web apps services that people whip out of their purses/pockets and (b) Live Communication like Windows Live Messenger, Skype, IRC. People are spending billions of hours in these two sectors and models that ignore these sides of their lives may miss where their passions live and who they trust.

Last, the ladder seems to miss those who are offline. Effective mapping could lead to strategies that use the online to affect the offline. We've seen that in US electoral campaigning where blogs and mailing lists were used to recruit online citizens and drive them into activities that both brought them up a ladder of political participation (from minutes per year to weeks) and applying volunteers to reach out over the phone and in street action to those who live mostly or completely offline.

All the best.

- Phil

[AjiNIMC - Gmail a part of my personal nerve center]

May be I will write about this sometimes.

Non-commercialization of commercial attributes through participation ladder is bringing the additional reach. We never accepted businesses but we accepted people (even salesmen), now businesses are bring the person feel in them.

Participation happens when it is Non-commercial and free.

[Jonny Bentwood]

This is an excellent insight into how companies should make bespoke programmes dependent upon the audience they are trying to reach.

Too often I have seen a 'one size fits all' methodology into new media outreach.

Hopefully, this kind of research will push vendors to consider that different approaches need to be taken dependent upon the micro-audience that are targetting.

[David Gerard]

1. The percentages don't add to 100% however shuffled.

2. What's the difference between "spectators" and "inactives"? Or do we have to pay $279.00 to find out?

[Josh Bernoff]

I will answer the last comment from David Gerard.

The percentages don't add up to 100% because there is overlap. Some creators are also critics, etc. That's why it's not a hierarchy.

Spectators are people who read blogs, listen to podcasts, or view user-generated video (look at the definition next to the ladder). Inactives are people who don't have any contact with social computing technologies at all, not even reading or viewing.

/josh

[www.greatmarketingstuff.com/blog]

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[Mark Rose]

Commented on this earlier but it got lost in the ozone. This is a great first crack at understanding the "overlapping hierarcy." I am sure it will be tweaked as we go along. Confirms what we see - most people are driving by, cruising, they many never be active participants. It's good to understand that. "Community" may be largely involved or uninvolved spectators.

Maybe we can revisit the ladder in 12 months? Maybe we can see a case study of a program or initiative that was created using the ladder as a guide?

[Ty Graham]

It's fun to read blog entries like this. I'll probably never understand why I seem to have all the answers to this model before the people can realize it exists. This is a bunch of deja vu to me. Place your bets, come one, come all. Buy your tickets to the greatest show on earth. The mystery has already been solved. Experience the wonder, the magic and delight, because soon, everyone will get blipd!

[Mike Abundo]

Interestingly enough, at least 25% of online Filipinos (five million Filipino Friendsters out of twenty million Filipino Netizens) are “Joiners”, compared to just 19% of Americans.

[JerryWFranklin]

Steve, thank you for the information. While some of my commenting predecessors find fault with your findings, I applaud your effort and the report itself. It is some of the most helpful information I've found recently.

JerryWFranklin
www.BlueSkyBrothers.com
www.AuthoritySiteNiche.com

[Malbonster]

I've really enjoyed this thread and its comments. I read the research a couple of weeks back, and since then we launched my.telegraph.co.uk for the UK's leading quality daily newspaper - a readers' blog platform where anyone can blog about anything. The surprising thing here is that the "creators" - i.e. all who are posting - seem to have an average age of about 60, and I've met (online) several 80+ people there.

Okay, the Daily Telegraph has a older readership, but so **many** of them are at it - no way would i have predicted so many older people involved to that extent. Perhaps the best way of considering your audiences and where they fit on the ladder is to try it out. It's so cost effective - probably less than commissioning research, as well as being more accurate - that it's becoming yet another compelling reason for old school media brands to do some of this stuff. (as if there weren't enough already ;-))