As an early sendout in advance of our newsletter November Buzz Report, here is our best thinking on how to build a brand community, what a brand community is (and how it differs from other definitions put out there), the 18 steps involved and 51 great examples.
Our company has been among a very few in Canada experienced enough to advocate, passionate enough to proseltyze and resourced enough to build healthy brand communities on behalf of brands that deserev them. We're proud to be working on a new white paper on this area and should be able to share results from it sometime next year.
To quote a recent Gartner number on communities (courtesy Jen Evans), 60% of Fortune 1000 organizations will build customer communities by the year 2010 and half will fail at them.
Let's be clear - this is the stuff of major competitive advantage and is sneaking up on the talent gaps and poor policies and processes of many organizations.
If you are at all thinking of building or studying communities of fans, influencers or advocates for your organization, this one is for you...
Social Media Zealots
Problogger
Conversational Media Marketing
Greg Verdino
Altitude Branding
The Buzz Bin
Being Peter Kim
The Altimeter
CoBrandit
Web-Strategist
Groundswell