ComBlu State of Online Communities 2010

Studying community performance, member
engagement and social media integration of
America’s top brands
November 2010
The State of Online
Branded Communities

ComBlu The State of Online Branded Communities 2
© Copyright 2010-2012. All Rights Reserved. Communications Blueprints, L.L.C. All copyrighted and trade-
marked material presented herein is the sole property of Communications Blueprints, L.L.C. (d/b/a ComBlu)
Table of Contents
Introduction……………………………………...3
Community with Purpose…………………………………... 3
Key Insights……..…………………………………………………..4
Strategic Conclusions………………………...5
Good News…….…………………………………………………...5
Key Findings……………………………………...6
Social Experimentation Most Prevalent……………… 6
Evolving Ideas About Community….……………………. 7
The High Performers…………………………………………...8
The Contenders…………………………………………………..9
The Low Performers….………………………………………...9
Missed Opportunities…………..………….10
Advocates Still Ignored…………...……..…………………..10
Additional Missed Opportunities…………………………11
Selected Findings……………………………..12
Best Practice Use……….………………………………………13
Best Practices by Industry………………………………….14
Activity Level and Social Media Integration………..15
Industry Scores………………………………………...……….17
Industry Detail…………………………………18
Automobile……….……………………………………………...18
Travel and Hospitality………………………………………..20
Entertainment…………………………………………………...22
Gaming………………………………………...…………………...24
Banking and Financial Services…………………………..26
Insurance…………………………………………………………..28
Healthcare and Pharmaceutical………………………...30
Retail………………………………………………………………….32
Consumer Products—Packaged Goods……………...34
Consumer Products—Beverage….……………………...36
Technology and Consumer Electronics………………..38
Telecommunications…………………………………………..40
Appendix…………………………………………42
Methodology …………………………………………………...42
Brand Score Methodology………………………………...44
List of Best Practices………………………………………….45
Company Scores………………………………………………..46
Community Sites Reviewed……………………………….48
Glossary…………………………………………………………….50
Contact Info……...…………………………….52

Online branded communities have three primary purposes:
Feedback, Advocacy and Support.
Each of these community pillars requires different ways of
engaging and activating stakeholders. Engagement tactics,
rewards and recognition approaches, community design and
voice and member experience will vary from pillar to pillar.
ComBlu’s second annual “State
of Online Branded Communi-
ties” study closely examines
the community and social mar-
keting programs of 78 compa-
nies—all of which are major
brands—across 12 industries.
We joined and evaluated 241
communities, comprising a mix
of feedback, advocacy and
support communities. One of
our major goals was to gain
firsthand experience with how
these communities engage and
interact with their members.
Specifically, our research assesses the brands’ effective-
ness in:
► Providing a meaningful experience for members.
► Integrating their brand strategies across multiple com-
munities and social media.
► Applying best practices to strengthen customer en-
gagement.
As companies move from an experimentation phase to a
more cohesive, disciplined approach to social marketing,
their performance in these three areas becomes even
more critical to their success. The “new normal” for mar-
keters is to prove the business value of every program and
maximize the return of every dollar spent. The design of
community marketing programs must deliberately follow a
best practices road map and generate business intelli-
gence that provides a diagnostic for maximizing impact
and return on investment (ROI).
According to Francois Gossieaux, partner of Human 1.0
and author of The Hyper-Social Organization,
“Companies realize that to successfully engage with em-
ployees, customers, prospects and detractors, you need
to go where they congregate and embrace a federated
approach to community.” Yet many companies are still
barely out of the pilot stage when it comes to overall
social engagement programs. According to the 2010
“Tribalization of Business Study,” which surveyed 300
companies, 54% of their online communities were less
than a year old, and only 13% were older than three
years. A whopping 96% planned to equal or increase
2010 budget levels for social marketing initiatives.
Matching social engagement strategy to business objec-
tives and optimizing return on social marketing invest-
ments is more crucial than ever.
Introduction
To succeed, brands must understand how to apply best
practices appropriate to each pillar. This will generate
deeper, more sustained member engagement and enable
brands to accomplish their specific community goals.
As companies become more experienced with social engagement, their approaches
and processes evolve beyond the confines of a single online-sponsored community and
extend broadly across the cloud.
Community With Purpose

While this year’s study uncovers significant positive mo-
mentum in the adoption of best practices, no brand
scored in the highest quartile (50 or more points).
We were surprised that fewer than 40%
of the communities we joined have any
kind of rewards or recognition program.
“Microfame”—defined as a member’s
status within the community—is one of
the key drivers for sustaining participa-
tion. In addition, a best-in-class reputa-
tion management tool will allow the community man-
ager to mine member actions for deep strategic insights.
For example, they could identify the most influential or
highest contributing members and understand how they
engage compared to members in other segments. A
reputation management system also provides guidance
on how to move members from one activity or contribu-
tion level to the next and can enhance a company’s
member recruitment and engagement activities.
Nearly half of the communities we studied
still have no active community manager
visible as the “face of the brand.” This
misses a huge opportunity to personalize
the brand and create a human connection.
One of the reasons people join branded
communities is to feel part of the team.
The community manager serves as a
"coach,” providing a go-to touchpoint for people who
have questions and ideas or want deeper insights into
the brand’s mission or game plan.
A few of the brands in our study are creating communi-
ties across all three pillars—Feedback, Advocacy and
Support—but a vast majority focus on Advocacy. The
brands that focus on support tend to be among the high-
est scoring communities; these communities are the
most mature and have evolved consistently over time.
The lowest scoring communities provide no real path
to engagement. They tend to have a Social Web model
that allows some interaction with content, but pro-
vides few ways to connect with peers, build on the
thoughts or ideas of others or provide any
feedback.
In contrast, the High Performers (brands
scoring 35 or more points), provide highly
customized, meaningful experiences to
members. They push content aligned with
both the information provided by members during the
profiling process and their actions in the community,
thus making their experiences better over time. These
High Performers allow members to bookmark content,
challenges, activities and aggregated content from
other sites. Some provide a traveling navigation bar
that lets the “experience” follow them. Sears is one
example of this.
As the social ecosystem expands and more people use
engagement as a normal part of their lives, brands
need to excel at adjusting in real time. They need proc-
esses for knowing and understanding not just how the
brand is being talked about, but how and when to re-
spond. If activated properly, community members
become the face and voice of the customer—and ulti-
mately of the brand—across the social cloud. Brands
that figure this out and apply discipline to this process
will be rewarded with higher loyalty, deeper customer
affinity and increased lifetime value.
Introduction
Engagement is a process that builds upon the
actions, feedback and interests of community mem-
bers. It is dynamic and organic and requires more
than the creative execution of viral campaigns.
Key Insights

Social marketing is growing up. Last year, few
brands in our study exhibited any evidence of
an integrated approach to social engagement. Many
communities were built around multiple—but unre-
lated—viral or online campaigns. They seemed less
about long-term customer engagement and more about
trying the latest social tools or applications.
This year, the number of brands with a cohesive ap-
proach to social engagement increased significantly.
Many brands seem to be adopting a Center of Excellence
(COE) orientation with a consistent use of best practices
across all of their social assets.
In addition, many companies are standardizing to a sin-
gle community platform to facilitate tighter integration
between properties. This also allows for a single login
and the ability to reward points wherever the member is
engaging, and prevents “gateway” confusion.
► Brands are doing a much better job delivering di-
verse engagement experiences by providing mem-
bers with multiple ways to participate. The use of
strategically aligned engagement tools nearly tri-
pled, growing from 28% to 76%.
► Communities with the highest activity levels tend
to focus on a specific need or interest. Those with
creative engagement tools, but no clear mission,
have less activity.
► Gaming and Entertainment industries have the
most active communities, followed by Insurance,
Technology and Telecommunications. With the
exception of Insurance, these are also the highest
scoring industries overall.
Our research also found much greater integration be-
tween a brand’s sponsored community site and its
other social assets such as Facebook, Twitter and You-
Tube. However, only 61% of brands offer sharing func-
tionality, which limits members’ abilities to be catalysts
for community growth and content syndication.
Strategic Conclusions
We found plenty of other encouraging news in this
year’s study.
The percentage of brands exhibiting a Cohesive Strat-
egy increased from 20% to 33%. The number of com-
panies that are High Performers (scoring 35 or more
points) jumped from 11% to 33%. This is a strong indi-
cator that brands are learning and applying a more
focused and disciplined approach to their social assets.
Activity levels in online communities are also signifi-
cantly higher. This is the expected outcome when com-
munities give members more ways to contribute and
connect with each other; reward their actions; show-
case accomplishments of high performing members;
and provide topical information on what’s new and
exciting. Each of these best practices has higher adop-
tion rates in this year’s study, with some brands show-
ing a three to four times increase over last year.
Good News

Social Experimentation remains the most common type of
community marketing category, with the percentage re-
maining virtually the same as last year. Thirty-five of the
78 brands we reviewed lack a long-term engagement ap-
proach and instead use a series of one-off social cam-
paigns. These brands have little integration across their
social assets and appear to have social ADD.
Evidence of a Cohesive Strategy—the second most preva-
lent category—jumped to 33% this year from 20% last
year, which means that 25 brands are taking a more disci-
plined approach to deploying and managing their spon-
sored online communities. A key indicator of this shift is
the higher percentage of brands with tight integration be-
tween all of their social assets.
The Community Overload category decreased from 9% to
5%, and the Community Ghost Town category dipped from
24% to 15%, which is another positive sign. Clearly, the
brands still in the Community Ghost Town category need
to move beyond a “build it and they will come mentality.”
These brands use the fewest best practices and exclude
many that would encourage return visits and long-term
engagement.
Key Findings
Overall Classification – 2009 vs. 2010
Social Experimentation Most Prevalent

The “Opportunistic Community”
This is an example of a more narrow
view of community and social engage-
ment. We see a growing use of interac-
tive campaigns that embed community
elements. By design, these have a
short shelf life, since they are part of a
larger marketing campaign or issue
management initiative.
► Many brands do not sunset obsolete or short-term
communities and do not migrate members to
more current platforms or programs. These aban-
doned communities appear to be ghost towns,
even if they were once robust social assets.
► A more effective strategy is to host these cam-
paigns within a long-term engagement commu-
nity. This allows for fresh content and recruitment
for the community, eliminates the need to sunset
a short-lived campaign and provides a way to
maintain engagement once the campaign ends.
The “Facebook Community”
Many brands are using Facebook
exclusively as their community
site, but few are doing so strategi-
cally. Many use the “out-of-the-
box” Facebook functionality and
simply push content and contests
to their walls and hope lots of fans “like” them. To be
effective, brands need to add true community func-
tionality and provide deeper engagement for Facebook
to be considered a real community site.
► One example of a brand getting community “right”
on Facebook is JPMorgan Chase. Its Chase Com-
munity Giving program has a reputation manage-
ment system that awards points and badges for
participation.
Key Findings
Our research shows that brands have varying con-
cepts—some expansive, some narrow—about what
community means.
The “Community Without Walls”
This type of community reflects a more global strategy
for social engagement. Brands that
adopt this approach engage stake-
holders through conversations, com-
munities, apps, tools and relevant con-
tent across the social ecosystem, in
addition to offering a community ex-
perience on a branded or sponsored site. Typically, the
sponsored community site serves as a conversation hub
for social engagement. The impetus for such a concept
is the recognition that stakeholders want to engage
where it is easy and convenient for them—not the
brand. They want the experience to come to them and
not be tied to one platform or device to participate.
► Most brands still are only rewarding actions within
its online community instead of across the ecosys-
tem. While integration with social media is higher
this year, members’ reputations and badges do not
follow them from property to property.
► Lack of universal logins and integrated reputation
management systems make it difficult to aggregate
overall contribution and actions.
► Even worse, many brands with multiple communi-
ties require registration at each site and do not rec-
ognize logins across their own communities.
Evolving Ideas About Community

Key Findings
Only 11% of the brands we reviewed last year scored
the 35 or more points needed to qualify as a High Per-
former. This year, 33% of brands are High Performers—
a significant jump. Although no brand has yet to break
the 50-point barrier needed to become Stellar Perform-
ers, American Express (48 points) and EA (47 points)
came close.
All Top 10 performing brands are in the Cohesive Strat-
egy category and have the highest percentage of best
practice adoption. Two of last year’s top performers
make this year’s list—Sears and AT&T—while two oth-
ers in last year’s Top 5—Sony and Best Buy—did not
make this year’s Top 10.
A few High Performers are also on the most improved
list, including Verizon (11 in 2009 to 44 in 2010), Ameri-
can Express (20 to 48) and Hewlett-Packard (16 to 45).
It is interesting that last year both Hewlett-Packard and
Verizon were two of the lowest scoring brands.
► Verizon totally revamped its support forums as a
robust community and vastly improved the com-
munity experience.
► When we scored last year’s study, Hewlett-Packard
had yet to launch its integrated community strat-
egy in North America.
The High Performers

Key Findings
An additional 16 brands not in our Top 10 list still
scored 35 or more points. Of the 16 Contenders, 11
place in the Cohesive Strategy category. Only NBC and
Kraft are in Social Experimentation, and Microsoft
again shows signs of Community Overload.
Six brands just miss the High Performer category: Ap-
ple (34), Pepsi (33), JPMorgan Chase (33), Best Buy
(32), Ubisoft (32) and Food Network (32).
► The high number of High Performers indicates a
move toward a more disciplined approach to so-
cial engagement.
► Most of these brands adopt the best practices that
lead to deeper and more sustained engagement.
70% of the ten lowest scoring brands are Ghost Towns.
The Retail industry has the highest percentage (44%)
of brands among the ten lowest scorers, but also has
one brand—Sears—in the Top 10.
As would be expected, the lowest scoring brands em-
ploy few high impact best practices and exhibit little
commitment to actually engaging with registered
members.
The Contenders
The Low Performers

Missed Opportunities
This positive momentum notwithstanding, brands are still
missing opportunities to engage with and learn from
their stakeholders.
► As we found last year, brands still do not typically
acknowledge the feedback they receive. Sometimes
a brand representative participates in forum discus-
sions, but comments, insights and feedback of the
community are rarely aggregated and discussed.
Obviously, the Feedback communities do this best,
but even their members often have no way of know-
ing whether their ideas were ever considered or if
their contributions were relevant.
► Most brands are still not customizing the engage-
ment experience, despite the increasing use of profil-
ing tools. No quid pro quo exists for members who
want relevant content and engagement in return for
providing extensive information about themselves,
their interests and their preferences.
Only 20% of the scored communities have a visible advo-
cate or expert group—a huge missed opportunity for
their brands. Advocates rep-
resent the “voice of the cus-
tomer”, possess deep affinity
for the brand, will actively
recruit others and are prolific
contributors.
► Gaming, Technology and
Telecommunications industries have the highest
percentage of communities with visible advocates.
 These industries have a sophisticated support
community model that relies on customer ex-
perts to answer questions and provide content.
► It is important to note that
some brands engage their
advocates in private commu-
nities that are not always
visible to the average or new
community member. Even
when this is the case, the
content and output of the
advocates should be aggre-
gated throughout a brand’s
social assets. A good model of
this is Microsoft’s private advocate community, The
Clubhouse, where advocates create user-generated
content (UGC) and rate the contributions of other
advocates. The highest rated content is broadly syn-
dicated to marketing and product websites, mass
social media such as Facebook and MySpace and
partner sites. (Full disclosure: The Clubhouse is a
ComBlu client.)
Advocatesare the 6% to 8% of a brand’s stakeholders who
are most passionate about its product, service or mission.
They serve as a catalyst for community building by socializing
content, ideas, apps and other engagement tools throughout
their personal networks.
Advocates Still Ignored

Like other entertainment brands, NBC lets
its show-based communities go fallow dur-
ing the off-season. For example, The Big-
gest Loser League is robust and active dur-
ing the season, but the community manager does not
refresh content, tools or activities in the off-season.
ABC, by contrast, maintains active engagement for its
show, Modern Family, throughout the year, primarily
through an active Facebook page. (Note: ABC was not
part of our study sample.)
Many brands in the consumer product
space have not yet adopted a Center of
Excellence approach across their multiple social as-
sets. Although General Mills’ communities generally
have high activity levels, many lack significant return
motivators and practices that can generate deep en-
gagement. In addition, the brand misses the opportu-
nity to provide access across properties with a single
login. By contrast, Kellogg makes it easy to participate
across its brands with a central profile and login called
its “All Access K Pass.”
Overall, Travel and Hospitality is a low
scoring industry. While Marriott has
the highest industry score, it is still five points shy of
being in the High Performer category. Integrating
more tightly with social media and providing more
ways for members to interact will lead to better com-
munity experiences. In addition, Marriott maintains
no visible presence in its Ask/Answer section, leaving
this task entirely to the community. People join
branded communities because they want interaction
with the brand as well as other members.
Even high scoring brands have
room for improvement. Humana
has some great communities, but would benefit if
they shared more cohesive, integrated rewards and
recognition programs. In addition, the brand could
explore integration with offline events for even
greater impact.
Some brands can improve their performance with
some strategy refinements.
Additional Missed Opportunities

Selected Findings
This year, we added ten best practices to our scorecard. These
are indicators of more disciplined approaches to social engage-
ment and enable brands to develop more meaningful relation-
ships with their customers. Some highlights include:
Welcome message makes new members feel appreci-
ated, wanted and oriented within the community. It helps en-
sure a return visit, and ultimately, higher engagement. This
was present in almost 50% of communities.
Connection to offline engagement helps extend
the brand experience both online and offline. The community
experience can make offline activities more successful. Follow-
ing offline events, the community can gather feedback, share
the event experience in a variety of ways and entice others to
participate next time. Only about 20% of brands do this, pro-
viding an opportunity for further exploration.
Advocate programs can serve as accelerants for en-
gagement and member growth. Only 20% of communities
have this type of member category—another huge missed
opportunity.
Percentage of New 2010 Best Practices –
Overall Adoption
Best Practice Use

Selected Findings
In addition, we did a side-by-side comparison of the change in
adoption rates for the best practices included in the 2009 study.
Overall, we were heartened to find big jumps in the usage of
many of the best practices with high impact potential. A few ex-
amples include:
Community manager increased from 32% last year to
51% in this year. This may be one of the reasons that activity
levels are so much higher this year. The community manager is
the face of the community and provides coordination between
the community sponsor and its members. The community man-
ager is like the “host of the party” and is an essential part of
community success.
Social networking leaped from 30% to 48%. This allows
real connection between community members. Since many join
communities to find experts or people with similar needs, inter-
ests or challenges, the ability to find others is an important social
tool.
Some interesting trends include:
► There is a big bump in communities using both user profiles
and faceted search. When executed properly, these best
practices can lead to a highly customized, meaningful mem-
ber experience.
► Just more than 60% of communities integrate share fea-
tures, which leads to the spread of word-of-mouth and
drives site traffic.
► While rewards and recognition programs grew slightly, only
39% of communities have a reputation management system.
Some reputation management best practices are being
adopted, including the use of leaderboards or member spot-
lights (44%), a personal dashboard (38%) and content cus-
tomization (22%).
Percentage of Community Best Practices Use Overall –
2009 vs. 2010
Best Practice Use

Community Best Practice Adoption Rate
by Industry – 2009 vs. 2010
Selected Findings
The adoption of best practices took a quantum leap since last
year’s study. Every industry that we reviewed last year (except
Retail, which was one point lower) increased its score.
► 86% of brands use more than ten best practices compared
to only 36% last year, which is reflected in the number of
communities with higher activity levels and fewer Com-
munity Ghost Towns. Companies seem to be learning
more about how online communities function and how to
optimize performance.
► The Top 5 Performers have higher adoption rates in 19 of
the 22 best practices compared to last year. Seven of the
best practices that generate interaction, feedback and
peer group formation have adoption rates between 73%
and 77%. This provides a diagnostic for those brands that
want to break the 50-point barrier.
► The top five best practices adopted by companies with a
Cohesive Strategy help community members locate the
highest quality content and find content by the most ex-
pert contributors and facilitate a customized experience.
► The five most improved brands—Verizon, Hewlett-
Packard, JPMorgan Chase, American Express and Micro-
soft—all have high adoption rates of those practices that
allow for a customized experience, facilitate interaction
with both the brand and community peers, and provide
recognition for contributions and efforts.
Best Practice Adoption by Top Scorers:
AmEx, EA, Discovery, HP and Sears
Best Practices by Most Improved Brands:
Verizon, HP, JPMorgan Chase, AmEx and Microsoft
Best Practices by Industry

Selected Findings
The percentage of communities showing high activity levels increased
significantly this year. This could be attributed to:
► Greater integration across social platforms (32% in 2009 com-
pared to 76% in 2010). This drives traffic across social assets (i.e.,
online community and Facebook) and allows for engagement in
the preferred venue of the member.
► Much higher adoption rates of multiple best practices, including
specific best practices that generate activity or engagement.
 Increase in user profiles (49% vs. 85%), diverse engagement
tools (28% vs. 76%) and faceted search (36% vs. 86%), all of
which can yield a more customized experience.
 Enhanced ability to connect with other members within the
community (30% vs. 48%).
Many brands are doing a good job of integrating across their social
ecosystems, particularly their online community and Facebook and
Twitter. While more brands are offering access to rich media through
their branded online community, few are integrated with YouTube and
other video sharing sites. In addition, most communities do not allow
for members to submit videos or rank them. This is a missed opportu-
nity for those who want to share insights or stories via this highly en-
gaging medium.
Overall Activity Levels – 2009 vs. 2010
Overall Social Media Integration – 2009 vs. 2010
Activity Level and Social Media Integration

Active Communities by Industry – 2009 vs. 2010
Social Media Integration by Industry – 2009 vs. 2010
With the exception of Retail and Auto, all industries show big in-
creases in level of activity in their communities. Retail is the only
industry to actually lose ground, with a whopping drop in commu-
nities rated “active”—53% in 2009 to 22% in 2010. Retail has three
companies among the lowest performing brands and the highest
percentage of Ghost Towns.
► Entertainment shows the most improvement in activity level,
increasing from 40% to 89%.
► The Technology and Gaming industries are early adopters of
online communities.
 Technology continues to show more focus and discipline
as reflected in their activity increase. This industry is doing
a good job of tapping its customer advocates to be active
community members and have mature rewards and rec-
ognition programs that incent further engagement.
 Gaming is an activity superstar. All of the communities
scored in this industry showed high activity levels. They
deserve a special badge!
Ten of the 12 industries show a healthy integration between their
online communities and other social assets. We define social me-
dia integration as those brands that present a consistent graphic
format and experience on both their community and social media
sites. They also have easy linkage between these social assets.
► This integration is achieved through content syndication and
aggregation, links and marketing themes.
Selected Findings
Activity Level and Social Media Integration

Scores by Industry
As with last year’s study, the industries with the high-
est adoption of best practices also have the highest
average industry scores.
The most improved industries are Entertainment, Tele-
communications, Financial Services and Technology.
Scoring Key:
 Scores between 0 and 34 are considered “low
performers” and are in the “red zone.”
 Scores between 35 and 49 are “high perform-
ers” and place in the “green zone.”
 Scores of 50 or above are considered “best
practice leaders.”
Selected Findings
Industry Scores—Average

Although this sector shows some positive movement, the Auto indus-
try as a whole is still low scoring. Even the highest scoring brands have
yet to adopt a significant number of best practices. About half
seemed to adopt a “push” mentality rather than one of true engage-
ment. When this happens, members will abandon the sponsored
community and create a user-generated one.
The auto industry drastically decreased the percentage of its commu-
nities that are Ghost Towns and also increased the prevalence of So-
cial Experimentation. The number of communities with high activity
levels nearly doubled.
The reasons for this increase in activity include:
► Leverage of the natural passion and loyalty that consumers asso-
ciate with car brands.
► Use of some best practices that generate high levels of engage-
ment.
 10 of the 16 communities we scored integrate online com-
munities, social media and offline events.
 The two motorcycle brands are particularly good at providing
tools for planning meet-ups and rides with other community
members.
 Numerous opportunities for storytelling and interaction be-
tween members.
 GM provided a highly customized experience by using an
overlay of profile information, car model and interests to
push appropriate content and engagement activities.
 Use of return motivators such as traffic alerts and best gas
prices in local area.
This industry lost ground in a few interesting ways:
► The presence of a community manager dropped from 31% to
13%.
► Both the use of forums and the ability to comment on blogs de-
creased. This removes the opportunity for interaction with peers
and the brand’s subject matter experts. This reinforces the
“push” model adopted in this industry.
Top Scorers: BMW Motorcycle and Toyota
Most Improved: Honda
Industry Detail
Total Brand Score
Percentage of Community Best Practice Use
Auto

Industry Detail
Industry by Classification Community Activity Levels
Social Media IntegrationPercentage of “New” Community Best Practice Use
Other Auto Data Points

This sector is new this year. As a whole the industry is highly
experimental, with no evidence of any cohesive strategy across
brands. One third of its communities are Ghost Towns, and this
sector has the lowest activity levels of all the industries.
Engagement tends to focus on feedback about hotel properties
or sharing travel experiences.
► Almost all of these communities focus on pushing market-
ing content rather than facilitating engagement with fellow
travelers or the brand itself.
 Little use of social networking functionality discourages
return visits.
 While many of the communities have forums, the low
activity levels demonstrate that members aren’t bond-
ing with the brand or connecting with each other.
► Big missed opportunity: While there is some basic rating
and ranking of properties or destinations, few allow visitors
to rate each others’ contributions or use a reputation man-
agement system. These factors mean members can’t
search for reviews by people that the community thinks
provide useful information and can’t connect with individu-
als who may share their travel interests and preferences.
The industry has let third party sites own this role and
therefore has lost some highly potent return motivators.
Top Scorer: Marriott
Industry Detail
Total Brand Score
Travel and Hospitality

Industry Detail
Other Travel and Hospitality Data Points

Five brands were added to this sector this year. Overall, this industry
took a big leap in adopting more Cohesive Strategies in their social
engagement programs, although 50% are still highly experimental.
Last year, nearly 40% of the communities were Ghost Towns; this
year not one is in this category.
Some key trends and insights:
► Just like the Auto industry, this sector can leverage the strong
affinity consumers have for entertainment properties and stars.
Most brands take advantage of this by showcasing them in their
communities to promote new seasons, drive engagement
around current programming and build an audience for an up-
coming event or show.
► This industry is working hard to personalize member experience.
 Big increase in use of faceted search, content aggregation
and social bookmarking. Nearly 30% of its communities
customize content based on profile information.
► This industry offers its visitors and members very creative ways
to play and engage.
 Food Network facilitates interaction between viewers
during episodes of The Next Food Network Star. Viewers
can chat with one of the network’s celebrities during the
show, which generates lots of participation and com-
ments.
 NBC’s The Office community has a highly engaging “virtual
office” world where members can earn Schrute bucks. It
has lots of interaction and return motivators, as well as a
great reputation management system tied to specific en-
gagement “tasks.”
 DreamWorks Animation has several fun interactive games
that allow visitors to engage with key characters (from
Shrek, Madagascar, etc.) When one of these characters
has a new movie in circulation, the company creates a full
-fledged microcommunity to build word-of-mouth about
the movie.
► Evidence of a Center of Excellence approach with lots of the
same best practices used across multiple communities of a
brand (NBC and Bravo).
► Missed opportunity: Many network show communities “go
dark” during the off-season.
Superstar: Discovery
Most Improved: Comcast
Industry Detail
Total Brand Score
Entertainment

Industry Detail
Other Entertainment Data Points

This is another new sector in this year’s study. Gaming
equals the Telecommunications industry in having the high-
est percentages of communities exhibiting a Cohesive Strat-
egy (67%). It also has the highest activity levels among all
industry sectors, with 100% of its communities showing high
levels of engagement. This industry is also the leader in inte-
grating advocate programs.
The high engagement levels are supported by several fac-
tors:
► Competition is the driving force behind most engage-
ment in gaming communities.
► Not surprisingly, all communities are high scorers in the
use of best practices. All have rich media, faceted search
and lots of fun engagement tools. Almost all have repu-
tation management, social networking, integration with
social media and a community manager.
► An interesting exception is the SEGA Buddy community,
which expands its mission beyond gaming to include
other lifestyles. Gaming communities seem to do better
when they focus on facilitating conversations around
the games themselves.
Superstar: EA
Industry Detail
Total Brand Score
Gaming

Industry Detail
Other Gaming Data Points

The percentage of communities in each performance category
remained unchanged for this industry. In addition, activity levels
remained constant year over year. Yet the use of many best prac-
tices spiked in this sector.
► The biggest increase in adoption rates are for the best prac-
tices that have the highest potential for generating return
visits and ongoing engagement.
► The communities that do well tend to focus on a very specific
segment, such as small businesses or support CSR initiatives.
Both American Express and JPMorgan Chase show significant im-
provement.
► JPMorgan Chase went from a Ghost Town to very active
(more than 2 million fans).
 Tight focus on using community to determine where to
“invest” its charitable donations.
► American Express has been using community longer than oth-
ers and seems to be growing its approach with a significant
increase in the number of sponsored communities over last
year.
 Each community focuses on a specific, yet separate
segment.
 Social networking serves as the basis for site growth,
content and continuance.
 All communities provide tools for significant interac-
tion with both the brand and other community mem-
bers.
 Lots of good engagement tools appropriate to commu-
nity mission or segment.
 Each community is designed to spread insight, obser-
vations and tips from one member to another.
Rewards and recognition is important, as this is the means for sort-
ing relevant contributions from non-credible information.
Top Scorer: American Express
Industry Detail
Total Brand Score
Banking and Financial Services

Industry Detail
Other Banking and Financial Services Data Points

This sector is another new addition to the study and includes both
health and property and causality carriers. While there is a high per-
centage of best practice adoption across communities, overall this is
a low scoring industry. The companies are evenly split between Co-
hesive Strategy, Social Experimentation and Community Ghost
Towns. The Community Ghost Towns are all health carriers.
Health insurers are strictly regulated and offer few opportunities for
direct interaction with the brand. These carriers use third-party con-
tent providers rather than directly managing their branded commu-
nities.
► Both WellPoint and Anthem BlueCross BlueShield (BCBS) use a
service called Healthy Chat with their communities—branded
WellPoint Healthy Chat and BCBS Healthy Chat.
► BCBS provide the opportunity to give feedback and integrate
this community with their Facebook page.
► Communities tend to be educational in tone or deal with life-
style issues rather than pushing products. We’re starting to see
a trend in this sector of linking community to CSR campaigns.
Missed Opportunity: Few have yet to figure out how to engage com-
munity members without violating their privacy or compliance rules.
Superstar: Humana
► Manages distinct communities for specific audience segments.
► Common set of best practices across all communities, indicating
a Center of Excellence approach.
Industry Detail
Total Brand Score
Insurance

Industry Detail
Other Insurance Data Points

This industry still has no evidence of any cohesive social engage-
ment strategy. While the number of Ghost Towns decreased by
35%, overall the number of communities with high activity levels
plummeted, dropping from 90% to 20%. Four out of five brands
have no integration with social media. Overall, adoption rates for
best practices are very low.
Since the FDA strictly regulates marketing and has not yet issued
guidance for use of social media, these findings are not surprising.
Pharmaceutical companies are hesitant to ask for feedback, allow
commenting or facilitate user-generated content. Many healthcare
companies partner with third parties or support the efforts of dis-
ease support groups rather than become too directly involved in
social engagement with patients. The overall trend in healthcare
communities is to sponsor “lightly branded” sites that focus on
disease support. Many reach out to caregivers as opposed to the
patient population itself.
Those healthcare brands that do engage patients and caregivers
tend to do so in private communities that are not widely or publicly
marketed.
Missed Opportunities:
► Lack of links from communities to websites containing “fair
balance” content, which has been vetted for compliance.
Interesting Brand: Novartis
► Uses a common engagement approach across two separate
communities for products within the same franchise.
► Has a surprisingly high level of interactivity for a healthcare
community.
► Connects members with other patients based upon extensive
profile information.
► One of its communities also connects members to the home-
page of local healthcare professionals—a great idea to engage
with patients and show value to physicians who prescribe
medications.
Industry Detail
Total Brand Score
Healthcare and Pharmaceutical

Industry Detail
Other Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Data Points

Overall, the Retail industry is a subpar performer in 2010. Its
number of Community Ghost Towns doubled, while the number
of brands with a Cohesive Strategy only slightly increased. Note-
worthy brands are Whole Foods and Sears, both of which offer
an engagement experience that is closely tied to its consumers’
expectations.
► Whole Foods provides a great place to explore organic
foods, learn about special diets and interact with others
with similar interests and views.
► Sears does a great job of aggregating content and driving a
highly customized social shopping experience.
 Reviews from across the Web are aggregated at the
online point of sale for the specific item being re-
searched.
 Traveling navigation bar allows consumers to book-
mark potential purchases, aggregate content and sub-
mit a review.
Activity levels dropped across the sector, with 78% of the com-
munities exhibiting low engagement levels.
► The decrease in both content aggregation and content tag-
ging, along with low level of social bookmarking functional-
ity, can potentially impede a seamless social shopping ex-
perience. One of the emerging best practices for this indus-
try is to aggregate product reviews, research info and peer-
to-peer conversations at the point of sale to help custom-
ers make purchase decisions. This experience should be
extended across the social and mobile ecosystem.
Two big brands—Walmart and Best Buy—lost ground
since last year’s survey.
Industry Detail
Total Brand Score
Retail

Industry Detail
Other Retail Data Points

Industry Detail
Total Brand Score
These industries have relatively high activity levels, but activity
is more “transactional” than indicative of true engagement.
Their communities tend to use a lot of “one-off" campaigns
that have some community functionality embedded in them.
Though this approach serves a purpose, the opportunity for
deeper engagement is missing across the board.
► This industry can employ more feedback functionality to
improve engagement.
► The widespread use of CSR as an engagement strategy
may speak to the difficulty in engaging deeply around
many consumer products, which are almost commodities.
(How passionate can you be about cereal or cheese?)
► Big jump in the use of member profiles, social bookmark-
ing and faceted search capabilities could point to the
emergence of a custom content model, which makes
sense in these highly “push’’ communities.
► Only 60% of communities highlight sharing functionality,
which is a big miss in this highly campaign-driven sector.
► Inconsistent use of best practices across communities.
► Kellogg has a dieting site without a reputation manage-
ment system. If any category needs rewards, it’s dieting!
► Lack of a Center of Excellence approach in a sector that is
typically “house of brands” vs. a “branded house.”
Packaged Goods

Industry Detail
Other Packaged Goods Data Points

We looked at Beverage companies as a separate segment be-
cause they share many traits and community approaches. Over-
all, these sites tend to be loyalty programs disguised as product
communities. This results in high activity, but as with consumer
packaged goods, activity was transactional in nature.
► Primarily short-lived campaigns, not communities designed
for long-term engagement.
► Top scoring communities integrate with CSR instead of hav-
ing a product or lifestyle orientation.
► Lack of consistent use of best practices across the industry.
► No way to connect with others.
► Lack of reputation management across most communities in
this industry.
► Most best practices resulting in deep engagement are miss-
ing, which underscores the “loyalty” orientation of many of
these communities. However, deeper engagement will help
move customers along the loyalty continuum.
Superstar: Starbucks
► Only focus is on product feedback and innovation. Good use
of community to improve customer experience and match
new products to customer needs/wants. Note: Since the
study, Starbucks has begun recruiting community members
to join a MyStarbucks rewards program.
Industry Detail
Total Brand Score
Beverage

Industry Detail
Other Beverage Data Points

More than 50% of the communities in this industry have Cohesive
Strategies, and not one is a Community Ghost Town. The evidence of
Community Overload sharply decreased, indicating that as brands gain
experience in social engagement they tend to become more focused.
This industry does a good job of sunsetting obsolete communities,
which leads to less overload and diminishes confusion.
Technology companies tend to have all three types of communities:
Feedback, Advocacy and Support.
This sector has relatively high adoption of most best practices, which is
understandable given the early adopter distinction of this industry.
► The growth of new/featured content, content tagging and content
rating and ranking points to an industry trend of spreading the
community experience beyond the four walls of the sponsored
community site. Many of the technology brands are aggressively
syndicating their content to partners and other social media sites.
► Many communities are focused on product support, which under-
scores the need for a community manager, content aggregation,
faceted search and the ability to rate and rank community-
generated content.
Some notable engagement trends included:
► Good integration between Apple community and the creation of
user groups. Apple provides all the support and tools for those
starting and running user groups and effectively integrates online
and offline activities.
► IBM provides different customer segments with tools to form
work groups and collaborate on projects. This allows for social
networking within a company to facilitate finding experts and oth-
ers who can help.
► Missed Opportunity: Lack of reputation management across com-
munities.
Superstar: Hewlett-Packard
► Hewlett-Packard consistently uses best practices across communi-
ties, following a Center of Excellence model. It has a well-defined,
distinct approach for each segment with little overlap, which
eliminates multiple gateways and doesn’t confuse members.
Industry Detail
Total Brand Score
Technology and Consumer Electronics

Industry Detail
Other Technology Data Points

This sector is tied with Gaming for the highest percentage
of brands with a Cohesive Strategy (67%). It also has the
biggest drop in Community Ghost Towns, and more than a
50% decrease in Social Experimentation. This industry fo-
cuses its social engagement almost entirely on support
communities, which accounts for the high percentage of
cohesiveness in its approach.
► This sector also has some of the biggest increases in
best practice adoption. Last year, this was almost a
“laggard” industry with lots of missed opportunities.
► The best practices with some of the highest adoption
rates are essential for the success of support commu-
nities: faceted search, social bookmarking, polling/
feedback, community manager, social networking,
content tagging, content rating and ranking, etc.
► This sector has the second highest prevalence of cus-
tomer advocates, who are also crucial for support
community optimization.
Superstar: Verizon
► Relaunched their forums as a more robust community
that integrates many more best practices.
Industry Detail
Total Brand Score
Telecommunications

Industry Detail
Other Telecommunications Data Points

For the 2010 study, ComBlu analyzed the community
and social engagement programs of 78 companies
during the summer of 2010. Selection criteria re-
mained:
► Large enterprise
► Industry leader
► Diversity in its marketing approach
We increased the number of industries reviewed from 9 to 12.
These include: Auto, Entertainment, Banking and Financial
Services, Insurance, Healthcare and Pharmaceutical, Technol-
ogy and Consumer Electronics, Telecommunications, Con-
sumer Products – Packaged Goods, Consumer Products –
Beverage, Retail, Gaming and Travel and Hospitality. With one
exception, all sectors include at least four companies. None of
the companies were aware that we were analyzing their com-
munity sites and social media initiatives. Further, ComBlu did
not contact these companies prior to the collection or analysis
of the data.
Each company was analyzed using a comprehensive auditing
tool that was designed to draw quantitative rating and rank-
ing data as well as qualitative reactions to community experi-
ence. Once all scorecards were complete, they were tabulated
to determine an aggregate score.
► Capture data about overall community health and wellness,
when available, including community size, activity levels,
frequency of engagement by community members and lev-
els of recent activity
► Evaluate social media integration with community sites.
Specifically, this evaluation examined the brand’s presence
on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and
LinkedIn. Other social media presence was also noted. While
the primary focus was community/social media integration,
detailed observations about branded social networking sites
that were being used in lieu of a traditional branded online
community were recorded.
► To determine social media presence and integration within
the communities, researchers specifically sought evidence
of an official brand presence in popular social media sites
available for public access. However, to be deemed inte-
grated with social media, a brand must:
 Drive traffic between social media properties and
online community.
 Indicate a shared vision and purpose through common
graphics, verbiage, community managers or theme.
 Share UGC between properties while using the
strength of each property for a defined purpose to
demonstrate the highest level of integration.
Appendix: Methodology
The auditing tool was used to:
► Identify and capture attributes of multiple company or
brand sponsored community sites. In instances where
one company had dozens of community sites, a repre-
sentative sample was selected for scoring. Each site was
analyzed using a scorecard that indicated which of 22
community best practices were present. In addition, a
separate scorecard was used for the 2010 study to track
adoption of an additional ten best practices. Observa-
tions about overall experience in interacting in each
community were also recorded.
The Approach

► Assign each company’s community marketing efforts
a primary and, where pertinent, secondary classifica-
tion. These included:
 Cohesive Strategy: A brand has a solid commu-
nity foundation with multiple activities rolling
into a single online experience, or “building with
a solid foundation.”
 Social Experimentation: A brand is experiment-
ing with one or more communities as well as
social media, but lacks evidence of a cohesive
strategy to tie it all together, or “lots of bricks, no
buildings.”
 Community Overload: A brand has multiple
communities fighting for attention from the
same audience, or “too many buildings.”
 Community Ghost Town: A brand has unpopu-
lated communities with little to no member ac-
tivity, or “no bricks, no buildings, no people.”
► A literature search provided additional insights about
the overarching strategy of a company’s social mar-
keting efforts.
Once all data was captured, analysts applied an algorithm
that yielded a Brand Score.
► The community scoring algorithm overlays multiple
data points to yield a score for brand community
performance. A detailed description of the filtering
process follows.
► Resulting scores could range from 0 to 60.
 Scores between 0 and 34 are considered “low
performers” and are in the “red zone.”
 Scores between 35 and 49 are “high perform-
ers” and place in the “green zone.”
 Scores of 50 or above are considered “best
practice leaders.”
Appendix: Methodology
The Approach (continued)
Calculating Brand Score

The community research algorithm is a performance filter
built in two parts intended to assign a score for brand com-
munity performance. This score is set against a color coded
graduated performance ranking scale (red, green and
black), with red being for low performers, green being for
high performance and black being for best-practice leaders.
► The filter calculates overall brand performance taking
into account aggregated community activity and pro-
vides an overall average of that brand’s community
effectiveness.
 Assigns a value to only those brands which exhibit an
identifiable community strategy.
 Assigns a sliding scale value to the different type or
classifications of a brand’s communities
(Experimentation, Community Overload, Ghost Town
and Cohesive Strategy).
► Part one of the filter contains a single multiplier which
is applied if the brand exhibits a Cohesive Strategy.
► Next a performance score is calculated for brand activ-
ity associated with community.
► This score is then integrated into Part Two, where it is
incorporated with the sub scores associated with the
various individual communities the brand has in play.
► This filter addresses individual community performance
against a set of best practices and performance thresh-
olds. Scoring of the second part of the filter is broken
into Tool Use, Community Activity and Social Media
Integration.
 Tool Use: Thresholds which measure the percentage
of tools are applied to a branded community.
 Community Activity: A value is then assigned to
communities which show consistently high levels of
activity. This metric does not take into account
membership count, only activity (so that a small but
vibrant community is not penalized).
 Social Media Integration: A value is provided to
communities that exhibit social media tools and
activity integration within their community. Com-
munities that lack this integration and activity do
not receive a value.
► In this filter there are two potential multipliers avail-
able to high performers.
 The first multiplier is applied to the tools section of
the filter. Communities using 70% of the tools (i.e.,
Forums, Wikis, Content Tagging, Community Man-
agement, etc.) or more receive this first multiplier.
 The second multiplier rewards communities that
integrate their community and social media strate-
gies.
Each of the three multipliers in Part One and Part Two of
the filter carry an equal weight. Brands and their respec-
tive communities that integrate best practices and show-
case strong results will reap the benefit of all three multi-
pliers and will move them closer to the top performance
category of black. Brands and communities achieving one
or two of the multipliers, as well as showcasing strong gen-
eral and individual community results will fall closer to or
within the green category. Those brands with sporadic or
poor performance are assigned to the red category, indi-
cating ineffective community use.
Appendix:
Brand Score Methodology
Algorithm Structure and Rationale
Part One
Part Two

Appendix: List of Best Practices
► Collaboration
 Forums
 Comments
► User-Generated Content
 Rich media
 Blogs
 Wikis
► Social Networking
► Polling/Feedback Mechanism
► Community Manager
► Content Tagging
► Content Aggregation (RSS)
► Quality Content Rating and Ranking
► Faceted Search
► User Reviews
► Social Bookmarking
► Rich Media
► Fun Engagement Tools
► Avatars
► User Profiles
► Emoticons
► Rewards/Recognition
► Available Site Statistics
► New and Featured Content
► Easy Navigation
► Share Features
► Welcome/Getting Started
► Leaderboard, Member Spotlight
► Personal Dashboard
► Campaigns/Contests
► Offline Engagement
► Content Customization
► Advocate or Expert Program
► Toolbars or Custom Widgets
User Participation Personal Identity/Profiles
Return Motivators
New 2010 Best Practices

Appendix: Company Scores
*2010E — Enhanced score using ten new best practices
Company Scores
Auto
Brand 2009 2010 2010E*
BMW – Mini Cooper 13 22 25
BMW – Motorcycles N/A 28 33
Ford 17 23 26
General Motors N/A 22 25
Harley-Davidson N/A 20 24
Honda 3 11 14
Hyundai 11 11 14
Toyota 20 26 33
Bankingand Financial Services
Brand 2009 2010 2010E*
American Express 20 48 55
Bank of America 30 36 42
Citigroup N/A 17 20
JPMorgan Chase 4 33 36
WellsFargo 22 26 30
Beverages
Brand 2009 2010 2010E*
Bacardi N/A 19 22
Coca-Cola N/A 21 25
Pepsi N/A 33 38
Starbucks N/A 36 41
Entertainment
Brand 2009 2010 2010E*
Bravo 25 42 50
Comcast 23 41 46
Discovery N/A 45 50
Disney N/A 36 42
DreamWorks 11 14 17
ESPN N/A 40 48
Food Network 20 32 36
NBC N/A 35 40
Sony Entertainment 16 28 32
Warner Brothers 22 24 27
Gaming
Brand 2009 2010 2010E*
Activision N/A 44 48
EA N/A 47 53
Sega N/A 29 33
Sony Online
Entertainment
N/A 41 46
Ubisoft N/A 32 36
Xbox N/A 42 50
Healthcare andPharmaceutical
Brand 2009 2010 2010E*
Bayer N/A 20 22
Johnson & Johnson 4 21 23
Merck 4 5 6
Novartis 10 16 21
Pfizer 3 7 8
Insurance
Brand 2009 2010 2010E*
Allstate N/A 25 29
BlueCross and
BlueShield
N/A 24 27
Geico N/A 38 42
Humana N/A 39 43
State Farm N/A 28 33
WellPoint N/A 18 21
PackagedGoods
Brand 2009 2010 2010E*
General Mills 27 22 25
Kellogg N/A 26 29
Kimberly-Clark 20 44 48
Kraft 12 35 40
Procter & Gamble 31 35 38
SC Johnson 16 9 12
Unilever 19 20 22

Appendix: Company Scores
Company Scores (continued)
*2010E — Enhanced score using ten new best practices
Retail
Brand 2009 2010 2010E*
Best Buy 40 32 36
Home Depot 11 13 18
Lowe’s 15 22 25
Nordstrom 14 14 17
Sears 37 44 51
Target 11 15 17
Walgreens N/A 17 20
Walmart 21 15 16
Whole Foods N/A 41 46
TechnologyandConsumerElectronics
Brand 2009 2010 2010E*
Apple 21 34 38
Dell 28 42 46
Hewlett-Packard 16 45 50
IBM N/A 26 38
Kodak N/A 29 34
Lenovo N/A 26 29
Microsoft 13 40 44
Quicken N/A 29 31
Sony 43 43 48
Telecommunications
Brand 2009 2010 2010E*
AT&T 43 44 49
Sprint 23 28 31
Verizon 11 44 50
Brand 2009 2010 2010E*
Fairmont N/A 26 30
JetBlue N/A 23 27
Marriott N/A 30 34
Southwest N/A 26 31
Starwood N/A 26 30
Virgin America N/A 14 17

Appendix: Community Sites
Reviewed
COMPANY COMMUNITY
Auto
BMW - Mini Cooper Mini Owners' Lounge
BMW - Motorcycles BMW Motorcycle Owners of America
BMW Xplor
Ford FordFiesta Movement
FordMustang
Sync
GeneralMotors Owner Center
Harley-Davidson Harlistas
H.O.G.
Women Riders
Honda Owner Link
Rider's Club of America
Hyundai MyHyundai
Toyota Lexus Drivers
Toyota USA Facebookpage
COMPANY COMMUNITY
Beverages
Bacardi Bacardi
Coca-Cola The Coca-Cola Company
Expedition 206
Full Throttle
MyCoke
MyCoke Rewards
Pepsi Amp Energy
Dewmocracy
Mountain Dew
OceanSpray
Pepsi Refresh Project
Starbucks MyStarbucks
Bacardi Bacardi
COMPANY COMMUNITY
Banking and Financial Services
American Express Business Travel ConneXion
Executive Travel magazine
Food&Wine magazine
Members Project
OPEN Forum
Travel + Leisure magazine
Bank of America Small Business Online Community
Citigroup Women&Co.
JPMorganChase Chase
Chase Community Giving Facebook page
Wells Fargo StagecoachIsland
COMPANY COMMUNITY
Entertainment
Bravo BravoTV
Comcast Comcast
Comcast Network
Fancast
Fandango
Tunerfish
Discovery Discovery Channel
Discovery Health
Discovery Influencers
Planet Green
TLC
Disney DisneyChannel
DisneyFamily
DreamWorks DreamWorks Animation
Madagascar
Ogre Resistance
ESPN ESPN
Food Network Food.com
Food2.com
FoodNetwork
NBC Dunder Mifflin
MyNBC
The Biggest Loser League
YourGarage
Sony Entertainment Crackle
SonyMyPlay
SonyPictures Movies
SonyPictures Television
Warner Brothers DC Comic
Kids WB
TCM
The WB
WarnerBrothers
Zuda
COMPANY COMMUNITY
Gaming
Activision Call of Duty
Guitar Hero
HeroHQ
EA Armyof Two
EA
EA Sports
Skate
The Sims 3
Sega PhantasyStar Universe
Sega
SEGA Buddy
Sony Online Entertainment Free Realms
SonyStation
Ubisoft Avatar:The Game
Prince of Persia
R.U.S.E.
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved
Xbox Xbox COMPANY COMMUNITY
Fairmont Everyone's anOriginal
JetBlue JetBlue Airways Facebookpage
Marriott Marriott Rewards Insiders
Southwest Nuts About Southwest
Travel Guide Community
Starwood Sheraton
StarwoodPreferred GuestFacebook page
The Lobby
WestinHotels & Resorts Facebook page
Virgin America VirginAmerica
COMPANY COMMUNITY
Healthcare and Pharmaceutical
Bayer MS-Gateway
Johnson & Johnson Acuvue
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson's Baby
Splenda
Merck Isentress
Januvia
Zetia
Novartis CF Voice
CMLEarth
GistEarth
PatientsLikeMe
Pfizer Pfizer
COMPANY COMMUNITY
Retail
BestBuy BestBuy@15
BestBuyForums
BestBuyRemix
GeekSquad
Idea X
RewardZone
Home Depot GardenClub
Home Improver Club
Lowe's Creative Ideas
LowesforPros
Team Lowe's Racing
Nordstrom BP FashionBoard
Sears MySears Community
Target Target
Walgreens Walgreens
Walmart BabyBuzz Blog
Connect and Share
Customer Rating and Reviews
ElevenMoms
HealthyLiving
Walmart
YourStories
Whole Foods Whole Foods
COMPANY COMMUNITY
Telecommunications
AT&T AT&T Developer Community
AT&T Wireless Community
smallbusinessInSite
Sprint Inside Sprint Now
Now Network
Sprint
SprintUsers
Verizon Small Business Center
Thinkfinity
VerizonDeveloper Community
VerizonForums and Blogs

Appendix: Community Sites
Reviewed
COMPANY COMMUNITY
Packaged Goods
General Mills BettyCrocker
Eat Better America
Hamburger HelpMost Popular Driver
Join My Village
Millsberry
Pillsbury
Pssst
Kellogg Morningstar Farms
Pop-Tarts Kids
Pop-Tarts LOL
Pop-Tarts Sprinklings
Rice Krispies
Special K
Kimberly-Clark Depend
GoodNites
Huggies
Kleenex
Kotex Girls Space
Kotex Ladies Room
Poise
Pull-Ups
Scott
Kraft Crystal Light
Kraft
Planters
Real Women of Philadelphia
Tassimo
Procter & Gamble Asacol
BeingGirl
Bounce
Denture Living
Eukanuba
Everyday Solutions
Luvs
Man of the House
Pampers Village
SCJohnson Rightat Home
Unilever Axe
Bertolli
Dove
LiptonTea
SlimFast
Vaseline
Wishbone
COMPANY COMMUNITY
Insurance
Allstate GoodHands
Keep the Drive
Teen Driver
BlueCross and BlueShield HealthyChat
Geico GeicoFacebook page
MyGreat Rides
Humana Caregivers Corner
REAL
Twit2Fit
StateFarm The 50 Million Pound Challenge
WellPoint HealthyChat
COMPANY COMMUNITY
Technology and Consumer Electronics
Apple Apple Discussions
Apple UserGroups
Dell Dell Groups
Dell Ratings and Reviews
Dell Support Forums
Dell TechCenter
Direct2Dell
GoGreen Challenge
IdeaStorm
Owners Club
Hewlett-Packard Business SupportForums
Creative Studio for Business
Creative Studio for Home
IT Resource Center Forums
TeacherExperience Exchange
IBM BPM Blue Works
IBMCommunities
Mydeveloper Works
Kodak Print Rave
Tips &Project Exchange
Lenovo Lenovo Community
Microsoft Microsoft Imagine Cup
Microsoft Office Live
Microsoft Student Lounge
Microsoft TechNet
Microsoft Windows Live
Microsoft Windows Live Explore
Microsoft Windows Server
Microsoft Virtualization
Windows XP Virtual Zone
Quicken Quicken
Quicken Inner Circle
Quicken Live
Sony Sony Blog
Sony Ericsson
Sony Forums
Sony Frontline
Sony Playstation Network
SonyStyle

Appendix: Glossary
► Cohesive Strategy – A brand has a solid commu-
nity foundation with multiple activities rolling into
a single online experience, or “building with a solid
foundation.”
► Social Experimentation – A brand is experiment-
ing with one or more communities as well as social
media, but lacks evidence of a cohesive strategy to
tie it all together, or “lots of bricks, no buildings.”
► Community Overload – A brand has multiple com-
munities fighting for attention from the same au-
dience, or “too many buildings.”
► Community Ghost Town – A brand has unpopu-
lated communities with little to no member activ-
ity, or “no bricks, no buildings, no people.”
► Polling/Feedback – Inquiring into community
opinion through surveys, open forum discussion,
commenting or polls to allow community mem-
bers to voice their recommendations for commu-
nity improvement.
► Community Manager – A personality present in
the community charged with building, growing,
and managing it and making him or herself visible
and active in dialogue. In some cases, this is a
single person; in others, there are multiple people
representing the brand. In both cases, they are
active and regular participants.
► Content Tagging – The ability to tag user-
generated content with keywords to allow for
enhanced search and organization. This helps
members find the content they are most inter-
ested in. Typically, you’ll see a ‘tag cloud’ search
function visible in community pages.
► Content Aggregation – Grouping like-minded con-
tent from various resources into one or more eas-
ily searchable sites.
► Content Rating/Ranking – Allowing community
members to judge the quality of user-generated
content based on their own criteria.
► Faceted Search – The capability to explore the
community’s content by filtering available infor-
mation through keywords, topics, dates, etc.
► User Reviews/Content – The presence of user-
generated content in the shape of user reviews of
a brand’s products and services, experiences, sto-
ries, opinions, etc.
► Social Bookmarking – Offering community mem-
bers a way to store, organize, search and manage
content either within or outside of the commu-
nity.
► Fun Engagement Tools – Games, quizzes, enter-
taining rich media and other bells and whistles
created by the brand for the sole purpose of
member entertainment.
► Use of Rich Media – Integrating video, audio and/
or photography into brand content as well as al-
lowing for user-generated rich media to be cre-
ated and shared.
► Forums – Also referred to as message boards and
bulletin boards, these are applications used to
hold both consumer-to-consumer and consumer-
to-brand discussions containing user-generated
content.
► Blogs – Online journals housed within the commu-
nity that may be written by community managers
or community advocates and offer commenting
by all community members to create two-way
dialogue rather than simply a one-way push of
information.
► Wikis – Allow all community members to easily
create and edit any number of interlinked (often
database) community content.
► Comments – Opportunities for community mem-
bers to add their own point of view and expres-
sions to either written content or rich media cre-
ated by the brand and other members.
► Social Networking – The ability for community
members to find and interact with others within
the community that share similar interests, opin-
ions or activities.
Community
User Participation

Appendix: Glossary
► Avatars – Customizable online identities selected
by community members that help members cre-
ate their own online persona and share their per-
sonality with the community via an uploaded
photo, brand-generated illustrations, icons or 3-D
models. Avatars enhance a community member’s
user/screen name.
► User Profiles – Collection of personal data com-
piled by community members allowing others to
find people like them and vet the credibility of
members’ content by gauging their background
on the subject at hand.
► Blog Roll/Recommended Reading – List of blogs,
websites and other sources typically reviewed by
each community member, commonly included as
part of a user’s profile.
► Emoticons – Portrayal of a community member’s
mood or facial expression via illustrations or text.
► Social Media Integration – Integrating key social
media platforms for the intended audience (i.e.,
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, You-
Tube) into the community platform and market-
ing/communication initiatives.
► Rewards/Recognition – Publicly awarding commu-
nity members for community activities and in-
volvement. Typically reflected with points,
badges, callouts (e.g., Member of the Week).
► Available Site Statistics – Sharing community ac-
tivity and size data with members and/or site visi-
tors.
► New & Featured Content – Highlighting new,
highly-rated or interesting user-generated content
outside of its original home, whether on the com-
munity homepage, user profile or topical pages.
► Welcome/Getting Started – An acknowledgement
(instant or via e-mail) of a new member joining the
community and/or initial engagement tasks are sug-
gested. The latter could include a suggestion to com-
plete your profile or an initial incentive (bonus points)
for your first action. (You need to register for the
community to judge this. It can take up to a couple of
days to get response.)
► Easy Navigation – A user interface and structure that
makes it simple for members to find information and
participate in community activities.
► Content Customization – The ability to customize my
view of information to what’s of most interest to me.
► Personal Dashboard – Allows the user to monitor
individual community activity. Could show the num-
ber of posts, type of expertise, friends, kudos, how
many points needed to get to the next level, etc.
► Share Features – Making it easy for me to share
community content with others within my personal
network or in the cloud (via Facebook, MySpace,
LinkedIn, Twitter, my blog).
► Toolbars/Custom Widgets – When the community
goes with you. A tool that downloads to a user’s
browser. Can include custom apps, games, custom
signatures, content and social tools.
► Offline Engagement – Connecting members offline
and face-to-face with localized or special events.
Personal Identity/Profiles
Return Motivators
Social Media Presence
“New” Best Practices

Contact Info
► Learning more about community best practices?
► Getting a customized best practice review?
► Finding out how ComBlu can turn your communities into High Performers?
We’d love to talk!
Kevin Lynch
ComBlu
312.649.1687
klynch@comblu.com
Steve Hershberger
ComBlu
312.649.1687
sthersh@comblu.com
You can also check out:
www.comblu.com
www.comblu.com/blogs/Lumenatti
Follow us on Twitter:
@comblu
Since 2003, ComBlu has built or manages 30 communities in 20 languages with
more than 15 million members worldwide.
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