DACHIS GROUP COLLABORATORY — I tweeted recently that all of the details of planning an online community reminded me of planning a wedding. I submitted the tweet at the very moment I felt overwhelmed by the details of coordinating so many moving pieces weeks before launching the community. For the past three months, Dachis Group has worked closely with a community platform provider to design, build, and launch an online community for a client partner. I am a member of the Dachis Group team managing this project, and I decided to write about my experience...

CLICKZ — So far, most of us have been thinking about social media as a marketing tool. But have you thought about it as a product? "A product?" you might be asking, "Do you mean something like a new Web service or app?" Astute question, but no: I’m not talking about creating the next Facebook or Twitter. I’m not talking about giving everything away. I'm talking about actually making money from what you’re probably giving away for free right now. Think about it: even if you sell widgets, there’s probably value you can add for your customers by supplying information about how to better use those widgets. If you’re a service business, information itself is your business. And if you’re your own personal brand - I’m talking to you celebrities or digerati out there - then information about you is your business...

SOCIAL MEDIA EXAMINER — In this video I interview Greg Piche, Social Media Architect for Clorox. Greg shares insights into how the company’s new social media site Clorox Connects helps Clorox connect with partners and consumers to generate new ideas. You’ll also hear how the 100-plus year old Clorox rolled out its social media community. In this video you’ll find out how Clorox: Drives social media engagement with a point system, Offers a reward system through visibility on their social media site, Uses social media to come up with ideas for new products...

THE COMMUNITY ROUNDTABLE — The team at eModeration – a community moderation and management services company in the UK – released a whitepaper this week discussing ‘communities of purpose’. They distinguish these communities of purpose from communities of interest in the following way: Communities of purpose - An online community of people with a common, clear, defined goal; and Communities of interest - Communities built around a shared interest, but with no single defined goal (like Mumsnet or iVillage – although of course, there may be purpose elements within these sites, such as a pregnancy section within iVillage). It goes on to say that communities of purpose can take two forms...

FASTFORWARD BLOG — We’re seeing lots of examples now of consumer-oriented companies reaching out to their customers via social networking and seeing new and interesting ways of doing business emerge. Companies involved in business-to-business, however, are just starting to warm to social media. "B2B companies tend to have longer and more complicated messages to convey," says eMarketer’s Evelyn Jung. This may be about to change as well.  In fact, a report out of  eMarketer suggests that this space is about to explode. Why? As Jung, author of the report, states: "marketers are beginning to see opportunities to generate quality leads and position themselves as thought leaders in their industries"...