Last week, while at GTEC - the Government + Technology conference - in Ottawa, I was asked by a participant what percentage of people she could expect would contribute to her department’s wiki.

I quickly cited the 1% Rule, as outline in Citizen Marketers, the must-read book by Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell. In a post about the rule (May 2006), they wrote:

“For instance, in June 2005 Wikipedia had a total of 68,682 total contributors. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is reported to have told a library group that month:

    * 50% of all Wikipedia edits are done by 0.7% of users
    * 1.8% of users have written more than 72% of all articles

If we also add evidence from Bradley Horowitz that roughly 1% of Yahoo’s user population starts a Yahoo Group, we seem to have The 1% Rule: Roughly 1% of your site visitors will create content within a democratized community. (Horowitz also says that some 10% of the total audience “synthesizes” the content, or interacts with it.)”

Now, almost 2.5 years later, it seems that these statistics are still holding true. Today, an email titled, “The Fractured Web Community Impacts Marketing Focus” landed in my inbox (link to post). Sent by the Centre for New Media Research, it concluded that:

“The vast majority of online conversation is driven by a small group of web users ” less than ten percent of them. The rest of the web community sits back and watches the interactions as a mostly-passive audience that only occasionally injects a few comments. Community experts have been aware of this phenomenon for years, calling it “participation inequality.’”

But here’s the key:

” 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don’t contribute).
” 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
” 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don’t have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they’re commenting on occurs.

The 90-9-1, as it’s called, confirms the 1% Rule. Even over two years later, the same stats are holding true.

And that shouldn’t be a surprise. People have been talking about this in one form or another for quite some time.

In fact, if you’re looking for historical examples, check out the case of the 1 Percenters, as reported by Huba and McConnell. Or read about Participation Inequality here.

What’s the point? It’s two-fold.

1.    If you’re entering the social media waters, don’t expect to break this rule. It’s long established and it holds true in different contexts. Instead, go into your initiative thinking about what you can do to engage these key contributors and create tighter bonds to your brand. Make it easy to contribute. Reward participants. Promote your best contributors. Think of ways that validate these key brand supporters and keep them happy.

2.    Don’t discount the value of your 1%, and of the next 9%. These people care an awful lot about what they’re doing. They care a great deal about your brand. And wait, this is the key - the 90% crowd cares quite a bit about what their saying too. So communicate with your 1s + 9s. Feed them. Make them better at what they do. Think of them as the bridge from your brand to other consumers. If others trust “people like me” the most, then these are your most powerful ambassadors. So treat them as such.

So what is your experience with this rule? Do you consider yourself a lurker, a participant or a frequent contributor?

Discuss!

Tags: PlantingSeeds, Planting Seeds online, PlantingSeeds.ca, Mark Goren, Center for New Media Research, Fractured Web, Citizen Marketers, Jackie Huba, Ben McConnell, 1 Percenters, Participation Inequality, Lurkers, Contributors, Participants, Wikipedia, GTEC,