It was surprising to see so many small/medium business have nil or no online, blogging, or social media strategy to promote themselves. Was exciting is how well they embraced working together as a community to attract and retain customers/clients.

On a different note I’ve launched a blog for businesses to share their strategy/marketing/operations success and innovation stories to get them blogging and using social media to raise their profile. Should be very exciting as time goes on. I have a number of key people in the community that are warming up to this local “innovation”.

Information on the life insurance industry

Good points. I’ll work on some ideas for how brick and mortar companies can intertwine traditional and new media together. Fortunately, I have a few examples that I can bring in from my current role.

Standby for more content.

* Integrate corporate blogs in all customer touch points including:
o Announcements
o Product Launches
o Product Developments
o Support
o Customer Events

When discussing building online communities with people I get the sense that, while a lot of them understand how to incorporate the touch points into the blog, they have a harder time incorporating the blog (and other related media) into traditional marketing and advertising conversations.

Perhaps this is why, sometimes, people with strong bricks-and-mortar related customer bases fail to build online communities.