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Although the Internet is renown for embracing new ideas, chewing them up, spitting them out and moving on to the next one, a few concepts keep coming back, albeit in new forms.

The most resilient of these is the concept of communities.  They’re in vogue again, for exactly the same reasons they have been in vogue in the past – the concept of community aptly describes the nature and the potential of the online environment.

A couple of years ago, I was asked to write a piece for the “My Five” column in the Australian Literary Review, where people write about five books that have influenced them in their career.  The first book I listed was Net Gain: Expanding markets through virtual communities.

Net Gain was one of the first books that put Internet communities into a business context: not surprising, since authors John Hagel and Arthur Armstrong were both McKinsey&Company consultants. They argued that the web is used for three basic purposes – to find content, to interact and to complete transactions – and they correctly predicted online communities would grow around these purposes.

The book was strongly criticised by purists when it was published; they said that on the Internet there was commerce and there was community and never the twain shall meet. Not long after this, of course, eBay appeared. eBay is the textbook example of the type of virtual communities predicted by Hagel and Armstrong: a vibrant, self‐regulated community where people barter and sell, and make friends (and dollars) along the way.

They also forecast the disintermediation of industries such as travel, describing a future that looks a lot like travel sites such as Zuji, Wotif and TripAdvisor.

Hagel and Armstrong focused on the economics of virtual communities, arriving at the unsurprising conclusion that companies that begin developing online communities before their competitors have a significant loyalty advantage.

Well, I look around and it’s like Net Gain all over again. Then, we had Geocities and Tripod. Now, we have Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. And companies with thriving brand communities are weathering the economic storm better than those without.

Online communities = global village

Online communities are the present-day embodiment of the concept of the global village, first touted by sociologist Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s. Many pundits predicted that television was the technology that would bring to life McLuhan’s vision of people connecting with each other regardless of where they live. But TV was never going to make that connection, because it’s all one-way traffic (they don’t call it ‘broadcasting’ for nothing!).

The Internet, on the other hand, gives people the opportunity to seek out others who share an interest, philosophy, job or anything at all – without any regard to geography. They can dip into information created by traditional media on a topic, but they can then register their own reaction, or go off and conduct their own discussion with others totally separate from the original piece that started the conversation.

The challenge for marketers is to harness the power of communities. In our recent HotHouse podcast, info architecture, social media and online community expert Stephen Collins from AcidLabs talks about the rise of brand communities.

He stresses the importance of companies looking at the big picture when thinking about online communities, saying:

“You need to look at all things that draw people in (to your brand) on and offline, everything should be aimed at cultivating community on an ongoing basis.”

Stephen points to the example of Harley-Davidson, which rebuilt the entire company around owners of Harleys, who have always had a strong offline community. In fact, the company’s community-focused business strategy started back in the mid-80s, long before the World Wide Web existed.

Plenty has been written, in publications such as Harvard Business Review, about the work Harley Davidson has put into its community strategy. It founded the Harley Owners Group (HOG) with the aim of growing customer loyalty, enhancing the ‘Harley-Davidson lifestyle experience’, and bringing the company closer to its customers. With a free one-year membership included with the purchase of every new Harley, HOG now boasts more than one million members who gather offline and online to ride, make friends, and participate in community service.

Stephen Collins says Harley takes a holistic approach to its brand community:

“Riders who get together each weekend are also meeting online…. It’s an incredibly powerful approach that influences everything Harley does.”

A key element to successfully leveraging brand communities is to recognise that a community strategy needs to be integrated with the overall business strategy; it’s not just a marketing strategy

“A lot of what Harley has done is altruistic,” Stephen says. “What they’re doing is first and foremost good for the community, it’s not just about their business. This builds immense passion around the brand.”

Community comes first

It’s important to remember that the brand is built around community, not the other way around. “Smart brands reward community members, and not necessarily with money – it might be giving them special designations or positions within your brand community. These things mean a lot to these people.”

He warns about entering into financial arrangements with community members:

“If you’re hiring community members to do things for you online or offline, it has to be carefully managed, so those people aren’t seen as puppets for the brand.”

Microsoft is a company that used to do a great job of blending online and offline communities for its brand, creating advocates that weren’t on the Microsoft payroll. “As a customer, you would spend 12 months communicating with someone like Nick Hodge, Robert Scoble or Frank Arrigo via an online forum, then you go to a conference and meet them, find out they’re a good guy – it takes it all up a notch.”

“It’s not a technology thing – less than 10% of this is about the technology,” Stephen says. “What’s much more important is the grass roots effort to turn communities that already exist informally into cohesive brand communities.”

Stephen Collins has four pieces of advice for organisations that want to get started on brand communities:

1.    Be open to new ideas.
2.    Be prepared to fail frequently.
3.    Find the right people.
4.    Give them the skills to build the community effectively.

Finally, companies embarking on this effort need to realise that brand communities “are a long-term thing – you’ve got to do it for years to make it successful.”

Stephen Collins is managing director of Canberra-based strategy and consulting firm AcidLabs (www.acidlabs.org). His Twitter handle is @trib.

Tags: harley davidson, linkedin, net gain, online communities, Social Media, stephen collins, Web 2.0, Web 3.0