In 2010 we started building a new 2.0 webportal for the Royal Dutch Hospitality Organization (Koninklijke Horeca Nederland, KHN). This Liferay 6 Open Source portal initially offers the 20.000 members (enterpreneurs) of KHN useful information based on a personal profile. Because of the social features like blogs, fora and social media the portal also connects members with each other and with stakeholders. That allows them to share professional information, knowledge and opinions which helps them run their businesses better. The first release of the portal (www.khn.nl) was presented at the Horecava in the Amsterdam RAI on Tuesday January 11th.

 

WELCOME AT BRANDAMBASSADORS PORTAL

Brandambassadors connects people to brands, by empowering people to create online communities around brands. Here people can meet others that are connected to the brand, and share ideas and thoughts. True fans of a brand can evolve into a ‘brandambassador’ and be the link between users and producers.

"With adoption of all Social Computing technologies increasing brands will move beyond experimentation and focus on real business impact. New technologies will arise that allow platforms including email, the Web, and mobile devices to connect with communities. Brands will start to integrate social applications with traditional marketing campaigns and revise campaigns based on social feedback. As a result, we recommend that interactive marketers start efforts now, embracing listening platforms that help monitor brand while taking advantage of the recession to gain experience with social applications." Forrester

One of the communities Brandambassadors is working on is Vespafans.com. This community is successful and has a growing user base. At this moment the community is accessible for Dutch speaking Vespa fans. In the nearby future we will change it in a multilingual platform.

On www.vespafans.com Vespa lovers, users, friends, fans and ambassadors are exchanging information telling each other their experiences, giving recommendations, rewards and using social media apps to increase engagement with the brand.

Recently we started the second brand community The Blackberryfans. The place for BlackBerry users and fans to share information, participate, get new gadgets and new releases.