Did you parents ever tell you to go spend some time talking with your grandparents because you might learn something? As a kid, this kind of proposition was fairly unappealing considering that grandma and grandpa seemed out of sync with modern day culture. But then as you got older you learned that your grandparents were actually pretty fascinating in the things they knew and the wisdom they imparted. It turns out they were also much “cooler” than they let on.
In today’s world of social media communities a lot of attention is paid to the younger online generations because they have the highest propensities for engaging in social behavior and thus are potentially the UGC creators that will help make a community thrive. However, let’s not forget about the older generations (and less social savvy crowd) and their potential to contribute high quality content to the community, especially in the context of topic discussions. These are the kinds of high quality contributions that can put a community far ahead of its competitors from the perspective of a learning environment.
The key to empowering these less savvy online community users is to make them feel comfortable in an environment that is very new and unfamiliar; the social web. On one end of the spectrum we have the younger generation (e.g., 15 – 24) many of whom are comfortable wearing their life on their sleeves within social communities. These online users are even comfortable exposing sensitive (private) info like the fact that they just broke up with their boyfriend/girlfriend or lost their job. On the other end of the spectrum are the Baby Boomers who grew up in a much, much more private world and the idea of letting virtual “strangers” into their lives is a bit awkward, let alone announcing their private affairs to the whole world. I think that many of these older users would like to partake in more online social activities but are uncomfortable in that it has been portrayed as a younger person’s game. Hence, the insightful and fascinating contributions that these newbies might make in a community are left unsaid and both the users and the community are left worse off. Here a few tips to help you put your best foot forward when it comes to making all user types feel comfortable and empowered to contribute to the community conversations:
- Don’t let a few members steal the show - On one hand, communities greatly benefit from small percentage of members that seem to contribute 90% of the content. On the other hand, these same members can end up dominating the majority of conversations making it less than inviting for new members to join in. This can be mitigated by offering many different contribution options (from low engagement to high engagement options) and creating an “on-ramp” for new members so that they feel comfortable and are encouraged to contribute. For example, offer separate forums dedicated to new members and send proactive e-mails to new members encouraging them to get involved. Also, make sure there aren’t certain “high value” members that are intentionally discouraging newbies from getting involved. If this is the case, make it clear that the behavior will not be tolerated.
- Offer social rewards that aren’t geared towards the very top of the heap – Again, you’ll always have that handful of members that, far and away, contribute more content than the rest of the community. They are important to your community and should be treated as such. However, many of the social incentives that are put in place on communities cater to this handful of members and do not work to incentivize the rest of the community. For instance, we’ve all seen community home pages that promote the top five or so content contributors (e.g., blog posters, question answerers, media uploaders, etc.). However, once these top contributors get on a roll, they leave the rest of the community in the dust, nullifying this incentive for newer members. So, make sure to offer incentives for participation to users of all levels. LinkedIn does a nice job of distracting new members from the fact that they’re starting at “zero connections” by displaying a “percent complete” status bar based on how much of their profile (and other small participation activities) has been completed. This new members comfortable participating in the beginning and usually leads to larger community contributions in the future.
- Prompt users for their opinions instead of waiting for them to speak up – The untapped potential of community member contributions can be lessened by reaching out to them instead of waiting for them to speak up. I don’t know about you, but when somebody directly asks me for advice as opposed to waiting for me to chime in, the chances of me contributing my thoughts increase ten fold. To enable this, allow your members to self-organize into “interest groups” and then facilitate a system whereby these self-proclaimed experts are asked for advice when related conversations emerge. For instance, if a Travel community member starts a forum thread about “Italy”, then all members who have joined the “Italy” group should be alerted that there is a current question or conversation that could use their input.
- Model the behavior you want to see in others – In the early stages of your online community, it’s likely that you’ll need to seed community content and have brand representatives participate heavily in order to get reciprocal behavior from members. This is your chance to set a precedent and make sure your taking actions that emanate the embracing of all members and their viewpoints. Take extra effort to thank members for their participation and let them know that their input is valuable to community conversations. By doing this you’ll build a community where all members feel comfortable and willing to participate.
Anything I missed? Let me know 
http://donsedota.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/embracing-the-older-generation-and-others-like-them/
