Apr 21, 2009

New social networking communities seem to be on every virtual corner these days. Marketers understand that social media can be a powerful strategy that supports niche or segmentation marketing. However, when brands build out communities it’s obviously a business decision that has incurred significant resources – including dollars.

I wondered how do they integrate marketing objectives, while ensuring that the “social” aspects,  the heart and soul of the community, are authentically and transparently developed and nurtured? When Chris Kieff     offered the opportunity to interview one of his Ripple6 client’s from Meredith Corporation’s recently launched Mixing Bowl, a food and recipe community – I said yes!

About Mixing Bowl

Editors touch every piece of content that exists on our branded sites. We post recipes after they’ve been triple-tested in our kitchens, write how-to articles, and so on. We don’t run Mixing Bowl that way because we want it to be a site created by home cooks for home cooks.

I’m (Heather Morgan Shott) very present on Mixing Bowl (my username is CoolCookie), and my profile page states that I’m a Mixing Bowl editor, but I’d never censor conversation or edit content. I’m there to answer questions as well as contribute to the community just like a typical member would by posting my own recipes, sharing my opinions, and joining groups. From a business point of view, Ripple6 offers advertisers access to a very sophisticated and extensive analytics system.

Read the entire article here…