This document describes centralised online communities, where individuals with shared interests interact within brand-owned or borrowed spaces, including unofficial platforms like fan forums. It emphasizes the influence these communities have on consumer trends and the importance of building relationships with them for feedback on products and campaigns. Companies can leverage these communities as valuable focus groups and brand ambassadors to enhance their marketing efforts.

1. Understanding Online
Communities
2. Centralised

2. Introduction
Following our last presentation on de-
centralised communities this document will
look to explain what we believe is the
second type of online community, the
centralised community.

3. In this presentation
• What is a centralised community?
• What value do they add?
• How can you work alongside them?

4. What is a centralised community?
Site

5. What is a centralised community?
• A group of individuals which are brought together
through their interest in a certain topic.
• These can be found across owned and borrowed
brand spaces.
• Owned includes websites and forums that brands/
companies run.
• Borrowed will be their Facebook & YouTube pages
etc.

6. What is a centralised community?
• These centralised communities can also be created
via unofficial means.
• This includes fan run forums, websites, blogs,
Facebook pages etc.
• These fan run spaces can often be just as
influential, if not more so, than official ones.
• Centralised communities can also be created
around a topic within a larger community e.g. news
sites.

7. What value do they add?
• Centralised communities hold a large amount of
influence around a topic due to their passionate
conversational nature.
• Consumer trends and waves of interest often
come out of these areas on the web. The most
well known internet memes will usual start as a
topic of discussion in a centralised community.
• Holding a relationship, either through official forum
hosting or online consumer relations, with these
communities is key.

8. What value do they add?
• Strong relationships will ensure that the
communities feel valued and part of the topic/
brand that they enjoy so much.

9. How can you work alongside them?
• With a strong relationship companies can gauge
interest and sentiment around new initiatives,
product development, campaigns etc.
• When launching a new product a company can
give these communities information and gain
valuable consumer driven earned media coverage.
• As long as they feel valued these groups will
spread positive messages around the topic.

10. How can you work alongside them?
• Listen to what they are saying and their beliefs
before planning any activity.You can gain valuable
insight just from listening to these groups.
• Get them involved when you are looking for
opinion. They are ready made focus groups for new
or existing products.
• Target them with specialised content relevant to
the topic area they love.

11. How can you work alongside them?
• Get them to be your brand ambassadors. Provide
them with information before it goes out to
decentralised communities, they will help feed it
out and get you more earned media.

12. How can you work alongside them?
• Create a social community
Thought
Product
development Communities
destination around the topic. leadership will support
content each other
• Identify Identify
Utilise social media tools. new product
products iterations
• Provide moderation and thought
Create a
community
leadership. Business
Customer
development &
Identify service
• Enable audience to educate and
sales
upsell
opps
help each other, increasing
satisfaction and reducing customer
Relevant utilities
service cost. that help
the community
Steve Sponder - twitter.com/stevesponder - Version 1.1 - 22/03/2010

13. Want to find out more?
If you are interested in finding out more
around our thinking, ideas and work, or just
want a chat please feel free to tweet:
@headstream
@samhilary

14. Next week
Transient Communities