A couple of weeks ago, Sean Moffitt at Buzz Canuck wrote a blog post that presented 9 types of brand community based on their positioning on two axis, one of exclusivity and one of involvement. I found this to be a fantastic way to dissect and describe brand communities and wanted to explore the model a little further by attempting to define the lines between the various levels.
Exclusivity
As I examined the levels of exclusivity (low, medium and high), I attempted to identify the divisions between the three levels and I came to the conclusion that there are actually four, which are as follows:
- Open – These are communities that do not require registration in order to participate. Examples of these include message boards that allow anonymous posting and blogs that do not require registration in order to comment. To be honest, I can’t think of many brand communities that fall into this category as most marketers can’t resist collecting consumer information although you may be able to make a good argument for Facebook Pages and other similar social network groups to be included in this category as the brand creating the group has no ownership over any of the users’ data and many do not even require the user to join the page or group in order to participate.
- Registration – These are by far the most common form of brand communities and require nothing from the user but registration.
- Purchase – These are communities that require either the purchase of a product or a membership in order to join in addition to registration.
- Outside Selection – These are communities where members cannot self-select themselves into the community. They must be selected to join by the organizer of the community or invited by an existing member. Communities in beta mode are excluded from this as their exclusivity is either an attempt to generate buzz or genuinely a function of technical limitations.
Interaction
As I attempted to define the lines between the levels of interaction with communities, it became apparent to me that the level of interaction is rarely consistent across all community members. Even in the communities where a certain level of interaction is required in order to maintain membership, there is always a huge spectrum between the users who are performing the bare minimum and the most active participants. As a result, it makes more sense for the model to become an explanation of the types of brand community members rather than the types of brand communities. In defining the differences between members’ interaction levels, I decided to use a pared down version of Forrester’s six categories of participation.
- Spectators - This category could be considered a combination of the Joiners and Spectators in the Forrester model. These are people who will join a community, but will not contribute anything, preferring to consume the contributions of others without joining the conversation.
- Critics – These members are people who will respond to discussion threads, tag content and post comments as well as ratings and reviews.
- Creators – These members are nearly always the most active members of the community and contribute by writing articles (often as a way to start a discussion thread) and posting their own photos, videos or artwork.
Upon initial inspection, it would appear that now I am mapping traits of a community member (interaction) against traits of a community (exclusivity), but I would argue that the level of exclusivity of a community also represents the level of commitment on the member’s behalf prior to joining, with the only exception being potential members of an outside selection community. However, in most cases I would say that the influencer status required to gain an invite to those communities require a prior commitment far beyond a simple purchase.
Below is a diagram showing the intersections between the three levels of involvement and the four levels of prior commitment. The arrows indicate increasing levels of potential brand impact (both positive and negative). While it is fairly intuitive that a more involved member can do much more to boost or damage your brand, the level of prior commitment also corresponds to the level of brand impact because as the level of commitment increases, the exclusivity of the community increases, thereby providing each member with a higher degree of influence (both on and offline). For example, people are much more likely to listen to someone who they know owns a Harley Davidson (by virtue of their membership in that owners’ community) than an anonymous post on a Harley Davidson discussion forum or blog. Also, in addition to having more potential impact, I would expect community members to demand more involvement from the brand as they move upwards and to the right through the categorizations.
The above dynamic creates an interesting balancing act for those setting out to create brand communities. I believe most brand managers if asked would say that they would prefer brand community members in the upper right part of the chart., but before a brand sets out to recruit or create a community of those high impact members, they need to consider whether or not they are willing to devote the internal resources necessary to continue to feed the demands of those members and respond appropriately if a negative groundswell does occur.
