• Think tribe, not market segment: Find groups of people who have something in common based on their behavior, not their market characteristics.
• Think network, not channel: The most important conversations in communities happen in networks of people, not between the company and the community.
• Think customer-centricity, not company-centricity: The customer, not the company, has to be at the center of everything you do.
• Think emergent messiness and fragmentation, not hierarchical, fixed processes: People will want to see responses to their suggestions even if it does not fit your community goals.
Source: Mark Colombo, SVP of digital access marketing for FedEx, and Francois Gossieaux, partner at Beeline Labs