Acknowledging that customer conversations are beyond one’s control can be both a difficult and liberating step for marketers. But over the course of recruiting and facilitating more than 250 small, private online communities for a wide range of clients, Communispace Corporation has long argued that organic conversations between customers provide companies with invaluable insight into their lives, needs, and concerns – and do so in a much less static and controlled fashion than traditional, one-way methods. Likewise, allowing customers to initiate dialogue both with each other and with the community’s sponsoring company is a more genuine and strategic form of brand involvement than limiting “customer control” to a one-time, closed-ended encounter like letting them choose from a list of flavors or package designs.

Recent research by Communispace now also suggests that actively promoting customer-initiated conversations can lead to higher direct engagement between customers and brands. In small, private, online communities, the ability (and tendency) of members to initiate their own activities, including dialogues, surveys, photo galleries, brainstorms, and product reviews -- what will be referred to here as “member ownership” -- may be related to higher levels of participation. In this study of 84 such communities, those with a higher percentage of member-generated activities also showed greater overall participation, in terms of both volume of contributions and frequency of activity. Sites where members had a dynamic and independent voice were some of the most vibrant. Results suggest that sponsoring companies’ own interests are best served when they enable and nurture customer-to-customer dialogue and activities, and not control or limit them.