At the end of the day, I think the irony lies in the fact that we are trying to neatly define a community for marketing purposes. Most [organic] communities don’t even know they are ‘engaged in social media’ or a ‘community.’ They tend to call themselves online groups.

I am not trying to simplify the educational or intellectual aspect of what we are discussing, but I do think, however, that marketers tend to like nice, tidy buckets. As you know, communities are not nice and tidy because they involve a lot of sociological factors. As I tell other marketers: If you want to truly understand social media, don’t engage as a marketer, engage as a person.

Looking forward to more discussions around this area.

I agree with you that sometimes you will not be able to create a community and that not everyone needs one. While most communities are peer-to-peer problem solving communities (often in the context of a brand – as in developer communities or customer support communities), there are some communities that seem to center around brands. But they really don’t. As Cova rightfully said in Tribal Marketing (http://bit.ly/1RFS83), brands are used as links to enable the social. And in that case, just like Fiskars did and Jeep did, it is ok for marketers to also engage. Somehow I get a sense that your Hermes community was very much like that.

@Rotkapchen – Thanks for the comment – although I wonder where you left it

The classic case from my experiences is one of community born of rejection elsewhere: smokers communities. While working at RJ Reynolds the strength of smokers communities was seen as an example that surpasses others.

But there’s also the case of the ‘noble cause’ taking on a brand, so intertwined with community that it’s hard to separate them: http://ww5.komen.org/