Our SocialC20 friends at Comblu have released the third annual “State of Online Branded Communities” study. For your copy of the findings, click here.

It's no surprise that "An organization’s branded assets should offer a mix of content, conversation and community." and "Those brands that do community well present both the voice of the brand and the voice of the customer throughout their site experience."

However there were some new trends that surfaced, including:
Recommendation engines: With functionality that offers "If you enjoyed X you may also like Y" style recommendations, this service can be useful to communities across industries.
Advocates: the use of advocates is still low (20% adoption rate), but communities that adopt this practice have much higher engagement levels.
Mobile: 16% of the communities reviewed offer an app. Mobile experiences are growing.

One result of the study is that the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), ComBlu and The Community Roundtable are collaborating to bring a community management certificate program to market to help standardize the job as well as help organizations train people who are assuming community management duties.

To learn more about the study, including what brands performed best, download your copy of the findings here.

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com