The Engagement Pyramid (The 90−9−1 Principle)

The Engagement Pyramid is a simple yet power­ful PR model.

How do you max­im­ise the engage­ment for a digit­al PR campaign?

Getting 1% to offer their engage­ment as co-cre­at­ors is a good res­ult. However, to launch a suc­cess­ful social media cam­paign, you must also attract con­trib­ut­ors and lurk­ers — even if you can’t expect them to invest as much engage­ment as your top creators.

How does the Engagement Pyramid work?

Here we go:

The Engagement Pyramid

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The Engagement Pyramid

The 1% rule of online engage­ment was mainly an urb­an legend on the inter­net. However, a peer-reviewed paper from 2014 con­firmed the 1% rule of thumb. ¹Trevor van Mierlo. (2014). The 1% Rule in Four Digital Health Social Networks: An Observational Study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 16(2), e33 – e33. … Continue read­ing

Active pub­lics dis­trib­ute them­selves in a way proven sci­en­tific­ally by soci­olo­gists — long before the inter­net and social media emerged. 

The Engagement Pyramid divides pub­lics into three dis­tinct groups:

• Creators (1%)
• Contributors (9%)
• Lurkers (90%)

When study­ing inter­net for­ums spe­cific­ally, it’s not uncom­mon to find that 90% of users have nev­er pos­ted (lurk­ers), 9% are adding only to exist­ing top­ics and threads (con­trib­ut­ors), and 1% are act­ively start­ing new sub­jects and threads (cre­at­ors).

The Engagement Pyramid is some­times called the 1% rule or the 90−9−1 principle.

“The 90−9−1 prin­ciple and Zipf’s Law both effect­ively clas­si­fy mem­bers in online sup­port groups, with the Zipf dis­tri­bu­tion account­ing for 98.6% of the vari­ance.”
Source: Internet Interventions ²Carron-Arthur, B., Cunningham, J., & Griffiths, K. (2014). Describing the dis­tri­bu­tion of engage­ment in an Internet sup­port group by post fre­quency: A com­par­is­on of the 90−9−1 Principle and … Continue read­ing

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Engagement Levels: Our Identities and Roles

The engage­ment pyr­am­id (or the 1% rule, or the 1−9−90 rule) is a rule of thumb and shouldn’t be applied to broad demo­graph­ic pop­u­la­tions but to pub­lics, i.e. situ­ation­al interest groups.

If I use myself and my interests as an example:

Online engage­ment relies on the dynam­ics of spe­cial interest groups of like-minded people. We all belong to vari­ous interest groups — and our engage­ment in each varies:

Coincidentally, bring­ing such like-minded people togeth­er is some­thing the inter­net does very effi­ciently. ³Leon Festinger’s the­ory of cog­nit­ive dis­son­ance from 1957 explains why hand­ling con­tra­dict­ory inform­a­tion is psy­cho­lo­gic­ally chal­len­ging. Festinger’s the­ory on cog­nit­ive dis­son­ance and social … Continue read­ing

Typical 90−9−1 Online Distributions

Where might you find the dis­tri­bu­tion of the engage­ment pyr­am­id? Here are a few examples:

How To Increase Social Engagement

Organizations aim­ing for suc­cess­ful digit­al PR cam­paigns must stra­tegic­ally address the diverse needs of cre­at­ors (1%), con­trib­ut­ors (9%), and lurk­ers (90%) with­in their tar­get audiences. 

By cul­tiv­at­ing an inclus­ive envir­on­ment that nur­tures the tal­ents and interests of all seg­ments, organ­iz­a­tions can max­im­ize the impact of their digit­al PR efforts. Failure to engage any of these groups can sig­ni­fic­antly under­mine the cam­paign’s efficacy. 

Organizations should thought­fully tail­or their digit­al PR strategies to cater to the unique pref­er­ences and beha­viours of cre­at­ors, con­trib­ut­ors, and lurk­ers alike, fos­ter­ing a com­pre­hens­ive approach that bol­sters their com­mu­nic­a­tions’ over­all success.

PR Resource: More Psychology

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Doctor Spin’s PR School: Free Psychology PR Course

Join this free Psychology PR Course to learn essen­tial skills tailored for pub­lic rela­tions pro­fes­sion­als. Start now and amp­li­fy your impact on soci­ety today.

• 58 Logical Fallacies and Cognitive Biases
• Social Group Sizes (The Social Brain Hypothesis)
• The Pitfalls of Groupthink: Decision-Making in Organisations
• Cognitive Dissonance: Mental Harmony Above All Else
• Survivorship Bias — Abraham Wald and the WWII Airplanes
• The Engagement Pyramid (The 90−9−1 Principle)
• 150 — Dunbar’s Number
• Theory of Mind: A Superpower for PR Professionals
• The Amplification Hypothesis: Counter Extreme Arguments
• The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon: Heard About It Before?
• The Halo Effect: Why Attractiveness Matters in PR
• The Paradox of Prominence
• Parkinson’s Law & The Law of Triviality (Bike Shed Effect)
• Diffusion of Innovations

Learn more: All Free PR Courses

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PR Resource: Five Types of Publics

Five Types of Publics

There are plenty of inact­ive pub­lics around us in soci­ety, just “wait­ing” for extern­al situ­ations to activ­ate them and bring them togeth­er in coöper­at­ive, com­mu­nic­at­ive behaviours.

However, PR tends to focus on the already activ­ated publics:

“By focus­ing on act­iv­ism and its con­sequences, recent pub­lic rela­tions the­ory has largely ignored inact­ive pub­lics, that is, stake­hold­er groups that demon­strate low levels of know­ledge and involve­ment in the organ­isa­tion or its products, ser­vices, can­did­ates, or causes, but are import­ant to an organ­isa­tion.”
Source: Public Relations Review ⁴Hallahan, K. (2000). Inactive pub­lics: The for­got­ten pub­lics in pub­lic rela­tions. Public Relations Review, 26(4), 499 – 515. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​1​6​/​S​0​3​6​3​-​8​1​1​1​(​0​0​)​0​0​061 – 8

Kirk Hallahan, Professor Emeritus, Journalism and Media Communication, Colorado State University, pro­poses five types of pub­lics based on their know­ledge and involve­ment: ⁵Hallahan, K. (2000). Inactive pub­lics: The for­got­ten pub­lics in pub­lic rela­tions. Public Relations Review, 26(4), 499 – 515. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​1​6​/​S​0​3​6​3​-​8​1​1​1​(​0​0​)​0​0​061 – 8

Hallahan sug­gests a mod­el based on know­ledge and involvement:

As an organ­isa­tion tar­geted by act­iv­ists, what would be the best issue response? Hallahan pro­poses four prin­cip­al response strategies: ⁶Hallahan, K. (2009, November 19). The Dynamics of Issues Activation and Response: An Issues Processes Model. Journal of Public Relations Research. … Continue read­ing

Learn more: Kirk Hallahan’s Five Types of Publics