The web is awash with freely offered user generated content, with people seemingly all too happy to contribute photos, videos, Wikipedia articles, blogs and so on, never once expecting financial compensation for their efforts.
So what motivates them to do so? New research by a couple of economists attempts to shed light on the issue.
Abstract
The literature on the private provision of public goods suggests an inverse relationship between incentives to contribute and group size. We find, however, that after an exogenous reduction of group size at Chinese Wikipedia, the nonblocked contributors decrease their contributions by 42.8% on average. We attribute the cause to social effects: Contributors receive social benefits that increase with both the amount of their contributions and group size, and the shrinking group size weakens these social benefits. Consistent with our explanation, we find that the more contributors value social benefits, the more they reduce their contributions after the block.
Popularity breeds popularity
So essentially what they found is that people are much more likely to contribute content if there is a strong chance that a lot of people will consume it. This contrasts with traditional economic theory that suggests that the larger the group, the greater number of ‘free riders’ exploiting the system.
So there you go. If you want lots of people contributing content to your website, make sure they are given lots of attention.
Here I am – creating relevant UGC as you describe.
I frequently spend my valuable time – and (I like to believe) I often reveal potentially valuable business insights, making thoughtful comments on topics that interest me.
User Generated Content harnesses the passion and knowledge of potentially billions of users on the world wide web.
You also point out that, "If you want lots of people contributing content to your website, make sure they are given lots of attention." I occasionally post partly in the hope of somebody returning the favour with a comment.
Recently this paid of really well for me, with a comment from each of the two most respected and influential people in my industry. That is very high quality UGC. I achieved that by giving them attention as you prescribe, and by providing them with UGC.
So within online communities UGC can be a reciprocal thing.
Incidentally, I'm surprised you don't receive more comments on this blog (and inbound links) given the very high quality of the writing. It seems to me that you are also in a position that you could leverage to secure more UGC on this very blog.
Thanks Ben, always nice to get well thought out comments. Between my other online work I seldom get the time to muse on this blog, much less give it the promotional love it deserves. Guess it's more of a place to dump my thoughts really 🙂