KonzeptioNerd

Brand-Mobs (was: Brand-Communities)

At the recent Community Breakfast (see: Social Web World), we talked briefly about brand-communities. So far, few brands have risked the expense and long-term committment required to start up a community. Oliver Ueberholz observed that most brand-communities he’s seen were rather short-term campaigns; intentionally designed to avoid the litmus-test of longevity.

To me, those ultra short-term communities appear to be more similar to (smart) mobs; a specific sub-species one might call a brand-mob: a more or less directed (more or less spontaneous) gathering of people around a cause, event, or brand, who perform some sort of (inter)action for a limited timespan and then disperse.

Ueberholz also suggested that brand-community managers try to transport participants from one short-term campaign to the next. I’d like to see data for that.

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