I was reading an interesting article yesterday about online communities, written by Fournier S and Lee L. in Harvard Business Review, April 2009 “Getting brand communities right”. It was saying that brands were busy creating brand communities, and that it was a good timing, because consumers are looking for connection and brands which add value. The article was describing the different forms of brand communities: POOL, WEB and HUBS. As I understood it, Pool community only gathers people around a share-value or lifestyle. Lonely Planet can have these kinds of community forms, they might only have people that loves the brand, stating it on one social platform and that is it without interacting more online with others users. Whereas as Web communities tend to create more one-to-one relationships among users. I think Lonely Planet is part of that form of community, because people use to create a real relationship exchanging tips and information’s about their travels to helps others users. Hubs community concerns people that are all connected and gathering around one central character. This last community forms concerns more communities building around singers, actress, and media people.
People around these communities aren’t bounding for the same reasons and interacting in the same ways and level of intensity. The main idea of this article was that brands need to create different platforms to attract brands communities, and that “to strengthen pools and hubs, brands need to create web communities".
