Comments on: Online community metrics: numbers you need to pay attention to

By: Jean Martin

Jean Martin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:46:18 +0000

Very informative article. I think that this list of metrics is universal for measuring all kinds of internet activity, being this community , an online shop, a newsletter, a blog etc.
I always use Google Analytics to get statistics for my internet projects.

By: Kate

Kate — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:46:16 +0000

Nice work!
Found a lot of familiar points, but it was interesting to read about ‘Newsletter response rate’ and ‘Endorsements’.
Thank you!

By: How to Listen on the Web: Stay on Top of Industry News « My Media Labs

How to Listen on the Web: Stay on Top of Industry News « My Media Labs — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:57:54 +0000

[...] on items of interest that I find. For example, after seeing and scanning Martin Reed’s post Online Community Metrics: numbers you need to pay attention to, I emailed the item to my team from MobileRSS. While I filtered the rest of my RSS list and then [...]

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:56:35 +0000

Mike: I had the same situation. I allowed members actually to begin writing content for a site I worked at. All was good till this one member, who wrote five great articles before this, stuffed hidden links into new content. I couldn’t believe it. All the links were pointing to non-relevant sites so I had to confront the guy. He denied it….. so weird since you can just look at the html for the article. I had to use the ban hammer!!

By: steve Millerton

steve Millerton — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:31:32 +0000

The two metrics that i focus on is bounce rate and time spent on the site. For me this is the best way to find out what visitors are doing once they reach the site. Obviously the longer they spent on the site the better chance of making a conversion

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:35:19 +0000

I think you’re right that one needs to examine a larger number of metrics to determine the health of the online community. The “time on site” metric is very basic however does not lie. New registrations and also total membership are true metrics. If you are charging a membership fee each month then your revenue and trend are indicators.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:46:34 +0000

Totally agree with time on site. I own a community that was fairly popular but the time on site was a bit low. I did a bit of investigation and it turned out that some users were extremely immature and turned off a lot of visitors. Even though they were amongst my most active posters I had to give them an ultimatum. It worked a little (not entirely sure if it had an effect.) I’m still working to improve this metric.

By: Martin Reed - Community Manager

Martin Reed - Community Manager — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:29:17 +0000

Beth – In 2008, Deloitte found that 35% of the online communities they studied have less than 100 members and less than 25% have more than 1,000 members. All this despite the fact that close to 6% of the businesses studied had spent over $1 million on their community projects.

I think amateurs are better at building online communities than corporations, and for many reasons. Often, the amateur has the passion – they’re motivated by sharing and relationships rather than money. Secondly, amateurs can take on more risks when promoting and building the community. Thirdly, amateurs aren’t restricted by as many rules and don’t have to jump through hoops to get approvals for their strategy or ideas.

You don’t need money to build a successful online community – you just need passion, enthusiasm and a strong work ethic.

By: Beth

Beth — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:50:54 +0000

These are very good measures.

I am wondering what the success rate might be of folks attempting to start a community, and actually succeeding.

And, once the community has been established what might be laudable goals to set.

I mean, what we have is a goal of setting up a community. OK, I get that.

But, then I ask myself the next question. For what purpose? How long is a community’s average life span? What are good examples of people who have started communities who have transition it to something that can support a full time effort if that is the goal.

I am not talking about someone with lots of cash to spend. There are believe it or not about 5% of the population who can lay $50,000 down to start an online community anytime they want.

These are the people who own 95% of all the stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. These are the same 5% who own 40% of everything ownable in the US.

So, I am asking, as a poor person with only my fingers and a machine, what are my chances of starting a community, and staying with it long enough to do the members and myself any real good?

Has anyone tracked this sort of thing?

By: David

David — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:30:52 +0000

Free tools like google analytics and statcounter can help a site owner understand visitor metrics. As mentioned in the article it’s quality what counts over quantity