Comment On Building Branded Communities
Posted by anastasia on 06-12-2007Sue-Anne commented on my post about Sprite's new mobile community The Yard. I guess the bigger question is whether branded communities (or even brand engagement on bigger social networks) really lead to measurable ROI in the form of teens drinking more Sprite or buying more Nike branded soccer products (think: Nike Joga)?
Although there seem to be many hiccups in building branded communities, I still think it will work. What would be the deciding factor for success really depends on how much brands are willing to sit back and let users lead the way. We all know sometimes the wisdom of the crowd supersede management. Branded communities can be successful if the 'netizens' are democratized and that hardly comes by knowing that at the end of the day, it is 'controlled' by a single brand. So when the crowd decides something else is trendy which appears to be somewhat irrelevant to the brand, both brand and crowd will then reach the crossroad. And they have to decide whether to stick together or go separate ways.
June 13th, 2007 at 8:02 am
This is a great topic, by the way.
What are your thoughts on branded communities, UGC, & negative behavior– less from the community perspective, but more from the squeaky clean branded perspective?
What about youth branded communities & staying a squeaky clean brand?