Abstract
THE LEADING QUESTION:• How can companies manage their brand communities effectively?FINDINGS:• Setting up and managing a brand community of customers is a potentially powerful marketing program for companies in the current harsh economic climate.• Many company-run brand communities fail because they target participants too narrowly, emphasize product-related discussions, and exert too much control. As a result, customers participate for selfish, functional reasons, without forming bonds or relationships. The community remains anemic, and has high participant turn-over.• Customer-enthusiast-run brand communities are more effective by: (1) welcoming a diverse consumer base, (2) allowing participants to express themselves freely, and (3) encouraging a broad range of activities beyond product discussions, such as networking and socializing. This leads to consumer participation for intrinsic, emotional, and social reasons, and the evolution of strong communities marked by consciousness of kind, a sense of obligation, and rituals and traditions - in other words, “real” communities.
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