You need to work like crazy to encourage members to make lots of contributions (tiny personal investments) into your community.

The more investments you persuade your members to make, the more they will participate and help make the community succeed. This is because nobody wants to feel they wasted their investment.

There are four times of investments. Time, energy, emotions and money.

  1. Time: The more time a member spends in a community the more they want it to succeed. This overlaps significantly with energy, but with a few distinctions.
  2. Energy. This is the effort members put into the community. i.e. Members who have written lots of posts, helped curate content, arranged events or otherwise actively contributed something to the community.
  3. Emotions. Nobody wants to feel they got worked up over nothing. Provoking strong emotional reactions are investments made into your community.
  4. Money. If you’ve paid to attend an event, have a custom URL, bought WoW gold you’re going to work hard to make the community a success.

Tiny investments create engaged members. They convert newcomers to regulars. The more personal investments your members make, the more they will be involved in your community.

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