THE LEADING QUESTION: • How can companies manage their brand communities effectively? FINDINGS: • Setting up and managing a brand community of customers is a potentially powerful marketing program for companies in the current harsh economic climate. • Many company-run brand communities...

This paper explains how companies can manage their brand communities effectively. The findings reported in this paper are based on a four-year long project involving the study of company managed and enthusiast-run communities. During that time, 200 brand community managers of company-managed and...