Lurkers, Listeners & the Amplification Factor

Bryan Person pointed me to Kyle Flaherty, who has a good post based on a conversation ignited by Jackie Huba of Church of the Customer Blog and Society for Word of Mouth in relation to stats that say 90% of folks involved in your social media activity are "lurkers" and a mere 10% are active participants. Kyle's view is that it is more accurate to call them "listeners" than lurkers and, in any case they should not be overlooked.

I agree with all of that. Whether or not, the number is accurate is not that mportant to me. What is important is that every time you post something in social media--on a blog, or in Twitter, Friendfeed or FaceBook, you should imagine that ten times that number have read or watch what you said and share the view being expressed, whether that view is negative or positive.

There are exceptions of course. Buty when you do the 10X calculation, you start understanding that those 4 comments you received are a sampling of maybe 40 readers & watchers.

Like Kyle, I'm not that fond of the term "lurkers." We all read and watch and move on. We do it all the time and I'd be surprised that very many of us comment on 10% of what we read, hear or see in social media. When we do, it's often because we either feel strongly about a post or think we can add value to the conversation.I would guess for every time you post there are ten more people who share your view.

I call this the "Amplification Factor." Think about it next time someone comments n what you have posted.