The Off Topic Conundrum of Newsgroups
Hopefully I can stay on topic with the topic of going off-topic. I think we’ve all noticed this effect and so we did a little research to look at this common occurence in Social Media channels and here’s what we found. To do this we examined the comment sections of 1,200 blogs that had an average of 5 comments per post and a posting frequency of at least once per week. Then we looked at 1,200 newsgroups and forums across multiple topics (auto’s, knitting, model building, tool and home repair.) We then compared.
Blogs: When it comes to blogs people tend to stay on topic 92.4% of the time.
Newsgroups: In this channel, people went off topic about 74% of the time.
Forums: In forums, people went off topic 86% of the time.
By “off-topic” we mean that if for example, someone posted a question or started a conversation about a particular topic, within 4 comments on newsgroups the discussion would veer into something only slightly related. We found in newsgroups that the new topic would continue an average of 72% longer than the original topic. In forums it was 63% longer.
What we took away from this is that newsgroups and forums tend to reflect group discussions while blogs are less of a discussion and more a statement of opinion. We found that in blogs, there was little evidence of people reading other peoples comments. In only 15% of the instances with blogs did we find other commenters referring to a prior comment.
We also noted that only 22% of the time did the blogs author engage in the comments left on their blog. Where we identified gender, we found women were 65% more likely to engage with the people leaving comments on their blog.
So what? If you’re a Social Media consultant or a PR professional, you know much of the real “gold” of a campaign or handling a communications issue, resides in the comments people make. It’s one thing to ignite a conversation, it’s another thing entirely when people pick it up and it goes viral.
It’s also important to note the different styles of “conversation” within each Social Media channel so that a conversation can be started or managed accordingly. Some additional information on businesses and forums coming soon.