I’ve worked with online communities in one form or another for most of the past 15 years. guess I’m something of an elder amongst the Australian (and global) social media communities; especially those bits of the community that have a focus on the benefits offered to using social networks and social media tools within government and business. Worked with communities”, “powerful”, “empowered”, “difference”. Communities. Nothing that we do with online communities can’t, in effect, be done on 3x5 index cards. They’re a powerful thing. ad nauseam. MORE >>

How does one build a community that will give money to a project? Kickstarter is an online community where you put up your project that you need funding, in this case to make a new dock for the iPhone. The community then decides to put money in, if the project is worth it. Diving straight for the gold is just going to get you ignored or worse, kicked out of the community. The community managers broke the news to the fans, not the newspapers. If media count for nothing then … Community is Everything. So I could trial the idea with the community. MORE >>

He was given access to a secret Mountain Dew Blog community, where he was asked for his input and feedback on various activities regarding the brand. They planned an offline version of the external influencer community. The External Community is the New Focus Group. These external communities can be likened to an exclusive club—think velvet ropes, bouncers with biceps and bottle service. These non-Facebook communities are good for the influential customers, the company and the crowd of future purchasers. It was the highlight of the event. MORE >>

Many people and organizations are beginning to make great money from their online communities. The secret is to avoid the obvious routes (advertising/affiliate marketing) and focus on adding value to the community. By far the easiest, pack your community with added value and charge for membership. This might be giving them sponsored areas of your community, opportunities to participate in threads about their brand/specific topics or standard banner adverts. Promote relevant products through your community and take a % of the sale. Focus groups. MORE >>

We need to get more innovative about monetizing online communities. It detracts from the community experience. They require you to focus not upon recruitment, but upon retention. They force you to provide real value within the community. This might be a package that includes customization, unique access to host/run their own areas of the community, ability to organize events/create content etc. The best method to monetize a community is to develop products and services the community wants to buy. These add value to the community. MORE >>