FunVille

At first glance, FunVille, is glaring.

Few organizations would want their community
to look like this. However, then you notice the community has 1.2m+ posts.
That’s the sort of number organizations dream about.

A few points to make about this community:

• Sustaining event-driven relationships. For
  event-orientated organizations such as cruises, creating a place where those
  who met can continue interacting is very clever. It encourages them to attend
  future events to meet up again. They’re drawn to keep attending to stay part of
  the group.

• Give the community a unique name. Giving
  the community a unique name (especially ones that links to a symbol) is a very
  good idea.

• Have rituals. Rituals, especially those
  initiated by the community, are very clever. 

• Embrace status symbols. Status symbols,
  such as members using their signatures to list previous cruises they have been
  on, encourage people to go on more cruises. Carnival could improve this by
  ensure this appears beneath everyone’s comments.

• Simple forum design. Notice the simple design of this community. It might be based on a
  premium package (Telligent) but the design is a simple forum platform. 

• Good social density. The community has a
  good social density. It suffers from neither information overload or a sense of
  emptiness.

• Division of forum groups around interests. The forum is broken down by specific interest matters, such as
  ports of call, newcomers, ships, and unique user groups (The Coconut Monkeyhead
  Club).   

• A specific area for newcomers to ask dumb questions. First-timers have a
  place they can ask questions which have been asked many times before.

 If you’re looking for a good example of a
branded community, spend some time on Funville.