Increasing Activity in Enterprise Online Communities Using Content Recommendation

Although online communities have become popular both on the web and within enterprises, many of them often experience low levels of activity and engagement from their members. Previous studies identified the important role of community leaders in maintaining the health and vitality of their communities. One of their key means for doing so is by contributing relevant content to the community. In this paper, we study the effects of recommending social media content on enterprise community leaders. We conducted a large-scale user survey with four recommendation rounds, in which community leaders indicated their willingness to share social media items with their communities. They also had the option to instantly share these items. Recommendations were generated based on seven types of community interest profiles that were member-based, content-based, or hybrid. Our results attest that providing content recommendations to leaders can help uplift activity within their communities.