The Power of Strategic Thinking
by Michel Robert

It's difficult to define who you are if you don't have a specific business focus. Changes in business strategy lead to consumer confusion and make it very difficult to establish long term relationships with your customers.

A New Brand World
by Scott Bedbury

Be true to the core. Setting an agenda to share consumer values strictly for marketing purposes will quickly turn your consumers against you if they find your goal was manipulation. Define your values, believe in them, and live them in every aspect of your business.

All Marketers Are Liars
by Seth Godin

Understanding your brand values allows you to reach out to your consumer with an authentic voice, attracting consumers with similar beliefs. Understanding what drives you will allow you to frame the advertising of your products and services within a context that meets your desires and, therefore, the desires of your consumers.

The Brand Gap
by Marty Neumeier

Successfully sharing your business values across all of your consumer touchpoints requires coordination amongst numerous levels of your company, often with the support of outside service providers. Managing your brand to ensure consistency, clarity, and charisma will ensure that your consumers will take notice.

Excellence in Brand Communication, published by the Institute of Communications and Advertising

Go beyond the white board overview of The Brand Gap and dig in to every detail of brand development from strategy, to briefing, to research, to media planning and beyond.

Trendwatching

The latest in worldwide consumer trends, insights and business ideas.

Modern Marketing

Modern Marketing tracks the changing media landscape. From broadcast media to consumer control. From mass markets to niche markets.

Creating Passionate Users

Creating Passionate Users is a fantastic archive of articles on consumer-centric marketing and the value of empowering your consumers.

MarketingProfs

All the latest and greatest from the marketing world, from theory to business practice.

Guns, Germs, and Steel
by Jarod Diamond

The foundation of the Brand Community comes from our inherent need to form community structures. With agriculture and domestication, the resulting food surpluses supported sedentary populations. Within these populations, community hierarchies began to form. Apart from being a fascinating read, you can begin to understand the importance of community in any sedentary population. And cultivating a population that stays with your brand is no different.

Linked
by Albert Barabasi

In describing theories behind networks in mathematics, nature, and society, Barbarasi gives us a rare glimpse of how webs of interconnected hubs become full blown networks of interacting parts. One way or another, we are all connected.

The Tipping Point
by Malcolm Gladwell

Beyond "social epidemics", The Tipping Point references community member characteristics that will be very important to your community building endeavors. Understanding and identifying connectors, mavens, and salesmen in your community will help you maintain the integrity of your community and empower its most valued members.

Brand Hijack
by Alex Wipperfurth

Laying the seeds of a rabid consumer community isn't about plastering every piece of media your target may see with your latest advertising campaign. In order to build on the foundation of a smart business plan, brand values, and a compelling story, you need to identify the most important subsets within your target and work within those groups to lay the groundwork to naturally foster brand loyalty.

The Culting of Brands
by Douglas Atkin

Atkins provides us with some real world examples of communities that have been established around brands based on three key community characteristics found in both geographically bound and non-geographically bound communities. Defined by Albert M Muniz, Jr and Thomas C O'Guinn as shared rituals and traditions, consciousness of a kind, and moral responsibility, understanding and promoting these three standard characteristics of your Brand Community will lead to increased consumer loyalty, action, and interest.

Gonzo Marketing
by Chris Locke

A brand strategy outlining your value system does little to assist in developing loyal customer relationships if you aren't having a conversation with your consumer. Open up. Dialogue. Engage your community members, listen, and grow with them.