A01 chaf6542 06 se fm indd

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Purpose – people who are going through the same process or trying to achieve a particular 

objective. Examples include those researching cars, such as Autotrader (

www.autotrader.

co.uk

), or stocks online, such as the Motley Fool (

www.motleyfool.co.uk

). Price or prod-

uct comparison services such as MySimon, Shopsmart and Kelkoo serve this community.

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Position. Communities set up specifically for people who are in a certain circumstance, 

such as having a health disorder or being at a certain stage of life. Examples are teenage 

chat site Dobedo (

www.dobedo.co.uk

), Cennet (

www.cennet.co.uk

) offering ‘New hori-

zons for the over 50s’, 

www.babycenter.com

 and 

www.parentcentre.com

 for parents, and 

the Pet Channel (

www.thepetchannel.com

).

3 

Interest. This community is for people who share an interest or passion such as sport 

(

www.football365.com

), music (

www.pepsi.com

), leisure (

www.walkingworld.com

) or 

any other interest (

www.deja.com

).

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Profession. These are important for companies promoting B2B services.

These B2B vertical portals can be thought of as ‘trade papers on steroids’. In fact, in many 

cases they have been created by publishers of trade papers, for example Emap Business 

Communications has created Construction Plus for the construction industry. Each has 

industry and company news and jobs, as expected, but they also offer online storefronts and 

auctions for buyers and sellers and community features such as discussion topics. Of course, 

the trade papers such as Emap’s Construction Weekly are responding by creating their own 

portals.

Today social networks provide a  low-  cost method for companies to create a community. 

You will notice that most of these examples of community are intermediary sites that are 

independent of a particular manufacturer or retailer. A key question to ask before embark-

ing on a  community-  building programme is: ‘Can customer interests be best served through a 

 company-  independent  community?’

If the answer to this question is ‘yes’, then it may be best to form a community that is 

a brand variant, differentiated from its parent. For example, Boots the Chemist created 

Handbag.com as a community for its female customers. Another and less costly alternative 

is to promote your products through sponsorship or co-branding on an independent com-

munity site or portal or to get involved in the community discussions.

Alternatively, companies can create their own forums although successful examples are 

relatively rare since there is a fear that a brand may be damaged if customers criticise prod-

ucts, so some moderation is required. Honda UK (

www.honda.co.uk/car

) provide a good 

example of a community created by their brand on their site. Rather than having a separate 

community section, the community is integrated within the context of each car as ‘second 

opinions’ menu options. Interestingly, some negative comments are permitted to make the 

discussion more meaningful.

A potential problem with a  company-  hosted forum is that it may be unable to get suffi-

cient people to contribute to a  company-  hosted community. But initial recruitment of con-

tributors and moderation has been used to grow the forum by software services company 

SAP, which has successfully created several niche communities to support its business with 

over 1 million software engineers, partners and business people (

www.sap.com/community

). 

Contributions are rewarded through donations to international aid charities.

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Part 2  Strategy and applications

What tactics can organisations use to foster community? Parker (2000) suggests 

eight questions organisations should ask when considering how to create a customer 

community: