For a while I’ve read various people debating whether ‘traditional’ terms for people online are still effective. Do we really just want ‘visitors’ – as if they turn up, pay their museum entry fee, look at the exhibits and then leave? Or is it fair to assume they’re users – as if we’re peddling heroin? Especially as a ‘user’ is linked to user accounts and usernames. And only those who actually make a transaction can really be termed ‘consumers’. (They’re not ‘Unique Users’ in analytics/metrics, they’re Unique IPs…but I think that’s not something that can be changed now!)
I think it’s a shame that ad agencies and computing have sewn up ‘client’. It’s more informal than consumer, and yet infers a bit more choice and power on the part of the individual than the other terms. And like an agency, any website publisher has to constantly evolve and adapt to meet the needs of their clients…
I did try to work out a reason for renaming the audience Flibbertigibbets, but even my tenuous grip on reality struggled with that one.
So, like an age old riddle, what’s someone who can come and read a website and leave, come and interact, or come and take part in spending money?
So far, my best effort is ‘Participant‘. If we accept that participation starts at going to a url and observing the content, and goes up to spending every second of the day interacting, posting, uploading and purchasing. And if you look at the Wikipedia entries for participation, it starts to make sense:
‘Participation, in addition to its dictionary definition, has specific meanings in certain areas.
- Participation (decision making), a notion in theory of management, economics and politics
- Participation (VR), a notion from virtual reality
- Participation (ownership), sharing something in common with others
- Participation (Finance), getting some benefit from the performance of a certain underlying asset
- Participation constraint (ER modelling), a special case of a multiplicity constraint’
So it can incorporate decision making, benefit, multiplicity, sharing, and being involved in a virtual reality? If you really want, you can split it into Reading Participants, Posting Participants, Uploading Participants, Buying Participants. You can even have a past participle if it makes you happy!
I’d be interested to know if other people think it’s a change worth making, and whether it’s worth participating or not?
What we really want, of course, are members – people who have registered, who engage with our sites/communities -community members specifically, actually. Participants includes a lot of that but sounds ephemeral – perhaps its the first layer of a model of levels of engagement?
How about initiators, elaborators and observers corresponding to the 1:9:90 rule.
And then cross-tabulate them with real-life categories: waiters, chefs, front office, housekeeping, F&B, etc.
Any good?
I agree that members is an aim, although I think a lot of users would participate more, and grow into members, if they weren’t presented with a registration barrier early on – for instance, sites which stop you from reading an article unless you’ve registered.
And yes, a lot of times you’re aiming for leads – but in some markets, a lead on average makes a purchase every 3 years, or perhaps every 6 months – so other revenue is important, which comes from traditional display advertising at the moment, but also from new ideas about how to create value out of interaction…
If you’re making a product, then leads work very well. If you’re providing a service, such as a portal, it becomes a lot harder, because you’re not relying on a good product to make the sale – you’re relying on all the stuff around it.
Doesn’t it depend on the site and purpose of it?
If they are not in some way in the category of “lead” what do you want them for? Just curious.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_lead
Interesting post and one that I sympathise with, having paused a thousand times during proposals, never quite happy with “user” or “visitor”. I struggle a bit with participant, though I see the fit. I tend to lean toward “prospect” or “client” when focussed on exactly what the person in my sentence is doing on my proposed site at that point as they are usually there due to some action that another marketing tactic (social or otherwise) has caused. To be a “user” implies some kind of consumption or acquisition has taken place, which is rarely true of service websites. To be a visitor implies a flitting, cursory glance at a site; I think we have to aim to use terms that cover their action (or intended action) at that particular point in the site. It’s made me think a little more though, as often sites are trying to create and engage with communities, though we are all individuals and its the engagement with individuals that is our aim, not simply the community as a whole?