Marketing in the Participation Age: A Guide to Motivating People to Join, Share, Take Part, Connect, and Engage

INTRODUCTION

The Participation Age

The living room is quiet on Sunday morning, occupied only by a 17-year-old sitting in a gaming chair in front of the couch. He wears headphones to ensure he doesn’t wake the rest of the family at such an early hour, and he is intently engrossed in game he is playing. Even though he is the only person sitting in the living room, he is not the sole participant engaged in this activity. Six thousand players from around the world are logged on this Sunday, even though it has, amazingly, been released for only a week. The game is Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops. This participant happens to live in rural Idaho and doesn’t know any of the other participants currently online. In fact, most of these participants have never met one another in person. But despite this fact, each has similar motivations for participating in Call of Duty: Black Ops. These reasons are not dissimilar from why individuals choose to take part in any activity—online or in the real world—such as a game, a physical sport, or even a political movement.

According to a report from research and education firm L2 Think Tank, more than 81 percent of upscale Gen Yers use the social media site Facebook every day. That’s nearly twice the number of people who watch television or read newspaper content. Gen Yers are commonly defined as the technology-savvy generation, but what’s more important and less commonly observed is the fact that Gen Yers were born participants. They have specific ...