We came across a study entitled “The 2008 Tribalization of Business” while preparing to publish a new Gilbane white paper on web experience management. The “Tribalization” research looks at communities and online marketing: how they deliver value, obstacles to making them work, what contributes to success, and how marketers measure effectiveness. Highlights of the research (co-sponsored by Beeline Labs, Deloitte, and the Society for New Communications Research) are reported on marketingcharts.com.

This datapoint caught our eye:

“The greatest obstacles to making a community work are not related to technology or funding, the study found; rather, getting people [to engage] in the community (51%).”

Community is one of four components of engagement strategy discussed in the new Gilbane white paper (the others are personalization, user-generated content, and collaboration). In the paper, we provide some guidance about making communities work not just at start-up but throughout their lifecycle.

Engage Me! Web Experience Management as the New Business Imperative is the companion white paper to a webinar in which we participated with Linksys and the Colorado Department of Transportion. The webinar and paper are sponsored by FatWire. An archive of the webinar is available for viewing, and the paper is now available for download on the FatWire site. It will be posted on the Gilbane site later this month.