1-99 rule

After reading the 80/20 Rule article (Preston 🐝 Vander Ven), this came to my mind... what is happening to all social media networks?. 

The use of social media to support marketing has increased in recent times.  How can we use this to develop our business?

Is the 80/20 rule applicable to social networks, forums and other platforms? Is the 90-9-1 Rule the new Pareto Principle for the web and other online environments?

In Internet culture, the 1-99 rule - the 1% rule - is a rule of thumb pertaining to participation in an internet community, stating that only 1% of the users of a website actively create new content, while the other 99% of the participants only lurk. This happens to all social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn or beBee.

Variants include the 1-9-90 rule (sometimes 90–9–1 principle or the 89:10:1 ratio), which states that in a collaborative platform such as beBee , 90% of the participants of a community only view content, 9% of the participants edit content, and 1% of the participants actively create new content. This is totally true.

A point of view

The 90-9-1 rule is:

• 90% of users are lurkers or quiet participants (they read or observe, but they don’t contribute)
• 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time (partially engaged)
• 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions (they are fully engaged): it can seem as if they don’t have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they’re commenting on occurs. They are intense contributors of content. They are "the honey on beBee". This is a tribute to all of them. Many thanks.

  beBee wouldn't exist without your contributions.

The terms "lurk"  or "lurking" or "lurkers", in reference to online activity, are used to refer to online observation without engaging others in the community.  

An optimistic point of view

Rather than seeing the lack of active contribution as a problem, it is far more helpful to view participation behaviour as a reflection of the variety of skills and strengths of the participants.

Instead of seeing the 90% as “Lurkers”, I prefer to view them as a type of participant. A participant who is primarily an audience that uses and applies the content presented.

The 90-9-1 rule is:

• 1% are creators (honey producers)
• 9% are editors or critics (producers and commenters)
• 90% are the audience (but like to believe they can contribute if they chose to)