The biggest motivation for Internet contributions is fame and not financial considerations, says a recent McKinsey study. It suggests that online companies would do well to nurture these contributors with money and other motivators.
The study conducted by Jacques R Bughin, a director of McKinsey in Brussels, combines the results of other McKinsey research activities to reach its conclusions. Bughin says that a small number of participants still contribute the bulk of popular items on contributory web portals. Websites that thrive on video uploads and Wikipedia-type of contributory content need to hook the small percentage of contributors who bring in quality content.
It does admit that while people come in driven by the urge to achieve fame or share something within their community, financial considerations can lead them to contribute regularly.
Bughin says: “Visitors under 25 years of age made up the bulk of the video-viewing audience we measured, but members in the 25- to 44-year-old age group contributed equally to postings —suggesting that working-age people would be open to participation in enterprise settings.”
He says the presence of tools like ones that show a most-viewed list that make it easy for users to see what’s popular or to send favourite videos to friends corresponded, by as much as 30 per cent, with more downloads for popular videos. The study found that in video sites, around three to six per cent of the contributors accounted for 75 per cent of the videos uploaded and two per cent of the contributors accounted for half of all the popular videos uploaded.
{{/usCountry}}He says the presence of tools like ones that show a most-viewed list that make it easy for users to see what’s popular or to send favourite videos to friends corresponded, by as much as 30 per cent, with more downloads for popular videos. The study found that in video sites, around three to six per cent of the contributors accounted for 75 per cent of the videos uploaded and two per cent of the contributors accounted for half of all the popular videos uploaded.
{{/usCountry}}Bughin suggests that in companies where there is an effort to build up internal content through contributions from employees, the manager must identify the employees with the best networking within the company. He suggests that a track of the internal mails will help executives find out the best net-workers within the company.
“Companies should make sure that their employees can access collaborative tools with a minimum of bureaucratic hassle,” he writes.