Social engagement firm ComBlu has just released “The State of Online Branded Communities,” a new 52-page report that you can download for free on their website.

It includes data from 241 online communities collectively owned by 78 corporations, and the bulk of the report discusses what tools they use and what “best practices” they follow. This data is then drilled down to specific industries and corporations are given a rating based on how well they are supposedly engaging through their online communities.

Overall, ComBlu did a great job collecting and compiling this data and offering it to us to consume – and for free. They certainly could have charged for the report and I would have never seen it unless they sent me a copy, so the fact that they are providing it free of charge makes it a must-download for anyone in the community space.

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of appearing on David Garland’s awesome web video show for entrepreneurs, The Rise To The Top. We chatted about my background, the power of online community and how to pick a niche and be successful. We also talked about how I built my brand and how I market my sites without a marketing budget.

I thought I would share it here as we definitely talked about some subjects related to this website. You can watch the video below and he also has an audio only version available on his website. A big thank you to David for having me.

photo credit: Brandon Eley

I was sitting at dinner tonight with Chris Moody and Damond Nollan at Ruby Tuesday in Durham, North Carolina. It was a late dinner, following a panel at North Carolina State University that I was featured on, alongside Chris, Damond, Ginny Skalski and Dan London.

We had a great conversation covering social media, professional speaking, higher education, career advancement, the importance of family and who knows how many other things. It was great to chat with them.

This is community and it is one of the reasons I love to speak at events. It may not be a huge community, it may not be forums, it may just be a conversation, but it is community and I love building my face to face community with good, strong, reliable people – one by one.

photo credit: corinnamakris

This is the third and final part in my series on building community around your blog. In part one, we discussed the community you have by default and, in part two, we touched on community building outside of your own site. Finally, we’re going to bring it home and discuss the growth of community on your own website, your own domain and your own hosting.

As powerful as it can be to grow community outside of your site, growing community on your own site, in an area where you have full control, can help you to unlock the power of community.

photo credit: gotosira

For part two in my series on building community around your blog, I want to talk about community decentralized – or community that is built on websites that you do not own or control. In the first part, we discussed community that you have by default upon launching your blog.

This relates directly to what Chris Brogan wrote about outposts. In short, Chris spoke about building community through his “outposts” that he maintains at sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and more. Sites that he doesn’t control. The idea is to offer value at thess sites, but the end game is to bring people back to the home base. In this case, his blog. This is a great way to look at it.

photo credit: Liz Grace

Pretty much every active, moderately read blog is a community. Most large blogs are large communities. In fact, forget the word blog, look at online publications in general. If they have traction, they have community. Even if they don’t have strong community features, a community manager or any of those things.

Don’t get too hung up on verbiage. Community isn’t a choice. The choice is how you engage and that is the focus of a three part series that I am beginning with this post, focused on building community around your blog and based on my recent talk at WordCamp Raleigh. Online community is dynamic. Your readers, subscribers and supporters are your community. That’s the same for any publication.

photo credit: anoldent

It has always been about community. It didn’t become about community with the popularization of the internet and social media. It’s easier to build community and it’s easier for everyone to have a voice, but that’s not the invention of community.

No, community has always been there. Community isn’t a choice. It was about community for television, for newspapers, for magazines, for the radio. It was about community for Coca-Cola, for Wal-Mart, for The Beatles, for Star Wars, for everyone. It was about community for any successful business or endeavor.

I recently came across the Apture Site Bar on my web travels, when I saw it pop up on a site I was reading. Simply put, it is a thin, floating top bar that appears when you scroll down below the fold.

It features the logo of the site that you’re on, links to share the page that you are viewing, on Twitter, Facebook and through e-mail (along with the current count of Twitter mentions and Facebook shares) and a search box that allows people to search from your site.

photo credit: alamez

I was talking to someone responsible for a Ning site tied to a major label rapper and this Ning site is basically just stealing articles from other sites. He did it to one of my articles, so I filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice and had Ning pull it down.

The subsequent conversation was weird and disappointing. It was clear that the person didn’t have even a cursory grasp of online content creation or copyright. In defense of his actions, he pointed out other sites that did the same thing. The sites that he pointed out, however, didn’t exactly do what he said. They did it sometimes, but sometimes they didn’t, not 100% of the time like him. And they included source links.

photo credit: DaGoaty

Once in a while, I’ll talk to someone who works for a company that runs a remotely hosted forum solution. Sometimes they call themselves more than that, such as a social network, etc., but their core is usually formed around the discussion area of their platform.

Sometimes, they’ll want to talk about their service and want me to know about it. These services have their place and I always like meeting new people, especially people in the forum or community space. But, when considering their service, there are two important questions I always ask them.