For the second in our series of Online Community Examples , we move on to look at online communities in the retail industry. Wal-Mart have a chaquered history with social media (the infamous Wal-Marting Across America campaign, for example), but they are doing some great things at the moment. One good example of building a small but powerful online community is Elevenmoms . Online communities in the retail industry In an economic downturn, we’re seeing a real shift in retail shopping  patterns.

I thought I could list all practical examples I gathered so far, so that if people want to know about communities of practices in a development cooperation context I can refer to this blogpost. The list is longer than I thought: Community of ICT4D trainers ILO/CIARIS experiences in lusophone Africa Communities of practice in India CoP in Ghana Tech forum in Kumasi, Ghana The community empowerment network in Central Asia Ayuda Urbana, a cop on urban development in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean Communities of practice at CARE International E-collaboration amongst

It is a couple of weeks since our last set of online community examples , with trips to the Marketing 2.0 But we’re returning today with a great set of examples from the healthcare industry. Online communities for healthcare can provide real insight and real support as the examples below show. Conference in Paris and Web Mission 09 in San Francisco taking up much of our time and space on the blog. Online communities in healthcare

For this week’s instalment in our series of online community examples we turn to the financial services industry. There are some really informed examples of social media by financial services brands and below are three great case studies of online communities in the industry from around the world. This turns the competition into an example of real consumer co-creation . Online communities in the financial services industry There’s no escaping the fact that the financial services industry has been hit hard by the current economic climate.

People are always asking us for great examples of online communities in their particular industry, so we thought we’d start a series of great examples from different industries: Online Community Examples . People very often have strong allegiances to particular brands and may choose to always purchase, for example, a Ford or a Renault. Each Monday we’ll be taking a particular industry and giving three short case studies of online communities, whether for marketing, customer engagement, market research or other reasons. Today we start with the automotive

A busy week at FreshNetworks has meant that we’re a little later than expected  bringing you the third in our series of Online Community Examples . After looking at examples in the retail and automotive industries, this week we are looking at examples from the not-for-profit sector. There are many great example of not-for-profits using social media and it is sometimes the case that this sector can Online communities in the not-for-profit sector There are many reasons for this: the financial pressures are different, there is a real need to engage people

We return this week to our series of Online Community Examples . So this week we take a look specifically at examples of online communities in the TV industry This industry is fertile ground for online community examples, as the three case studies below show. It is also a good example of how a hub and spoke approach to social Image by Daniel H. Agostini aka dhammza via Flickr

For the next in our series of Online Community Examples we are looking at examples of online communities in the travel industry The three examples below show different ways in which companies in the travel industry are using online communities to engage their customers with a view to increasing customer loyalty. As with many great examples of online communities , On the Go with Amy is simple concept, but one that delivers Online communities in the travel industry The travel industry is one well suited to online communities focused on engagement.

And we then moved into some examples from customer service: some good, some bad and one just ugly. A ‘Good’ example, Zappos is great at microinteractions. Another ‘Good’ example that shows how you can make effective use of Twitter. Dell is an example of ‘bad turned Image by JMC Photos via Flickr Earlier this week we wrote about Thomson Holidays and how a blogger can impact your brand reputation and how with social media, complaints have moved from being a customer service issue to being a branding and corporate reputation

This week we are turning our attention to the telecoms industry for our series of online community examples . There are not as many examples of good online communities for the telecoms industry as in some of the other industries we have covered so far in the series. Therefore many example of their use of social media are actually of them allowing people to communicate in social networks and on other sites. If you have industries you’d like included in future weeks please vote in our poll or contact me on Twitter . Online communities in the telecoms industry