A Deloitte survey of companies sponsoring online communities shows that they are using social media tools and online communities to engage with customers and employees for brand discussions, idea generation and product discovery. Communities can extend the edge of the corporation in truly transformative ways -- tapping into new talent, helping design products and services, providing customer support and, most importantly, building the brand with the customer," said Ed Moran, director of product innovation, Deloitte Services LP. "The survey data points to some growing pains, but companies are starting to see that online communities should be nurtured and leveraged for real business gain."

But while these online initiatives are having a positive impact, they haven’t yet reached their true potential.

Deloitte's '2008 Tribalization of Business Survey,' conducted in conjunction with Beeline Labs and the Society for New Communications Research, says building community critical mass is the primary barrier to reaching their true impact; most communities have less than 500 active members. Fifty percent of respondents said the biggest obstacle to making communities work is getting people engage.

How Communities are Driving Innovation

The respondents recognized that communities can be used as a seedbed for innovation: 39% of the companies that participated cited "idea generation" as the purpose of their online communities, and 19% cited "new product development" as the key goal.

CMO 2.0: The Chief Marketing Officer's Office Has Become the Community Manager's Office

The survey indicates that the role of the CMO is being revolutionized through communities, with the CMO often becoming the lead transformative agent, empowering the sales, customer service, and product development functions with the community's intelligence and participation.

According to 42% of the survey respondents, the marketing organization is now responsible for driving online communities. With communities becoming a central focus, marketing is now required to participate in non-traditional functions such as customer support, idea generation and employee communications.

Communities Require New Thinking by Management

While the Internet has produced unprecedented levels of insight into the size and demographic makeup of audiences, the survey reveals significant gaps between community goals and how success is being measured. For instance, while the top business objectives of the communities were "generate more word of mouth" (60%) and "increase product/brand awareness" (48%), what is most measured to assess success are less helpful metrics like "number of visitors" and "page views."

Not surprisingly, marketers often remain hard-pressed to identify areas where online communities are achieving their goals. Management also needs to rethink in some cases how business value can be extracted from sponsored communities.

"The survey reveals that there are several disparities between companies' goals, how to measure success, and appropriate investment," said Francois Gossieaux, a partner at Beeline Labs. "The companies that commit the dedicated talent and resources to driving customer centric communities will be the winners."