I recently experimented with creating an app to facilitate real-time gatherings online:
We found that the people who showed up to the online meetup loved it! However, we also found that a very small percentage of a “community” actually shows up. To give you an example, we invited a community of 1,400 people to an online meetup, and only 88 people signed up and 50 people showed up — a conversion of 3.5%.
Of course, there are inherent challenges with real-time meetups like timezones; however, we learned an important lesson:
A community is only as strong as its creators
The vast majority of people in a community are consumers: how can a community equip its creators to create more and benefit from their creations?
If a business can figure that out, then I believe a community can thrive and have a positive ROI for the business.
