Concurrent 4C: Building Vertical Communities and Connecting with End Users

Publishers see the opportunity to engage more deeply with their audiences, develop new business models, and reduce marketing costs by building online communities of interest for their end users. This session will bring together a technology provider and professional and academic publishers to discuss individual community-building efforts alongside the findings of two recent surveys into the growth of online vertical communities in our industry. The surveys reveal which publishers are investing in online communities, how this has grown over recent years, what resources publishers are currently putting into this area and why publishers feel it is important to create a direct rapport with end users in this way. Panelists will talk about both the pitfalls and successes, and how direct engagement with readers is creating new business opportunities and changing their marketing and product launch practices.
Moderator: Toby Plewak, Publishing Technology