In the next few months, we will turn our attention to a new addition to the impressive catalogue of salesforce.com innovations: Salesforce Communities. Throughout several blog posts, we'll identify the core functionality of Salesforce Communities, and how you can best leverage each feature. In order to kick this journey off, we must first set the framework for understanding what Salesforce Communities are, why they matter, and how they have the ability to revolutionize businesses at the most crucial level—customer interaction. 

What are Communities? 

Salesforce Communities are a mashup of several pieces of salesforce.com functionality that, when playing from the same page, are a symphony of meaningful interaction with partners and end customers. The main integration points are Q&A (Chatter Answers), Knowledge, and Ideas. Throw in a direct tie to the Service Cloud, and you have Communities. In order to leverage Communities to their fullest extent, these core pieces of functionality must be implemented so that they tell the same story once woven together and presented to the public. 

Why Businesses Need to Leverage Them

We live in a time of unprecedented connectedness. With the advent of the cloud technologies, avenues of social interaction are ubiquitous. Although social media is a new phenomenon, it hasn’t shown us anything new about the human condition—what it has done is highlight the fact that we, as humans, long to coexist within a network of meaningful relationships where we matter and have a voice. The impact of this phenomenon has even breached the corporate walls. The days of businesses existing and operating out of the reach of the consumer are long gone. Have an issue with your computer? Write a quick tweet on Twitter with the hashtag, #FAIL. Experience amazing service at Starbucks? Let all who are tuned in to your Facebook feed share the moment, after you check in with FourSquare of course.

In order for businesses to thrive in the emerging social marketplace, they must adapt to the changing culture. Once embraced, they must adopt technologies that will give them a clear, consistent, and meaningful voice that validates its customers as humans, not just numbers. That is exactly where Salesforce Communities excel.

A Roadmap for Upcoming Posts

Now that the philosophical soliloquy is out of the way (I am a bit of an armchair philosopher), where do we go from here? In the coming months, we will trek through the different pieces of functionality that come together to create Salesforce Communities, ending with a post on branding:

• Q&A (Chatter Answers): Helping Customers Help Themselves
• Knowledge: A Communal Knowledge Base with Context
• Ideas: Giving the Customer a Voice
• User Experience: Telling the Same Story with a Unified Aesthetic

For more information on Salesforce Communities, visit these related posts:

•  The End of Portals: The Dawn of Salesforce Communities
•  How to Deploy Salesforce Communities
•  Salesforce Communities—Features and FAQs