FreshNetworks Blog

At FreshNetworks we specialise in building and running online communities – we think these work best when brands are open and honest with the community members. When the communities are clearly branded and when people from these brands help to shape and even take part in the community. It’s part of the open conversation that leads to real insight, innovation and advocacy.

I was reminded this week by Mashable of some of the more well-known social networks and communities online that are clearly branded. Some of these are social networks – bringing together people to share content and to gather information on users, and some are true online communities – bringing people together around a specific idea. For the complete list from Mashable see here, but below is one particularly good example of a branded community online.

Reebok

Reebok’s RunEasy.com is a site for runners. It allows you to share experiences and advice on workouts, training and runs, and lets you upload and exchange photos and videos. The benefit for Reebok is clear – it gains an invaluable insight into how people use its product. This can help with innovation and helping to design and position the product more closely to how it is used. But even more than this the site itself offers a useful tool for runners – they can track their own training whilst exchange tips and experiences with peers. They want to use the site and its association with Reebok will lead to huge advocacy for them.