Well, the results from the 2009 Tribalization of Business Study are finally here.
As a reminder, the Tribalization of Business Study, sponsored by Beeline Labs, Deloitte, and the Society for New Communications Research, looks at how companies leverage communities as part of their business.
Over the next several weeks I will post the major findings from the study. The 2009 study draws on a much bigger base of companies than last year's study as the number of companies which participated this time increased to more than 430.
Some interesting observations that are worth noting and which I may have mentioned to some of you are:
- We are seeing clear signs of maturity in the marketplace - they include companies realizing the importance of lurkers, their increased focus on providing a heartbeat to their community, and fewer of them being stuck in pilot mode
- At the same time we are still seeing plenty of signs of confusion - they include companies not knowing what objective they are least able to achieve, a continued focus on ad-driven metrics, and a lack of people commitment to communities
- Some big aha moments from this year's study are that most communities still report in marketing, even though their goals are not all aligned with marketing, and that companies list social reasons rather than commercial reasons for success when asked what community features contribute the most to their communities effectiveness
If you would like to get a deck or a presentation on the findings of this year's study, please email me at francois [at] beelinelabs.com.
Along with the other sponsors we will be posting a release soon.
[update] You can find the release here. We will also be holding a webinar on it next week Wednesday at 1pm ET - you can register here for the webinar.