Over at ZDNet Dion Hinchcliffe has written a very good and comprehensive list of important things marketeers should pay attention to when starting a community, or even when they are already running it.
Below is a quick run down of his points, as well as my added thoughts. For the entire article you can visit this [...]

According to research conducted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research the Inc. 500 companies are quick to embrace social media. In fact, the study indicated these companies adopt social media into their marketing strategies far quicker than the Fortune 500 businesses.
But first things first, what exactly are Inc. 500 companies - [...]

It’s easy to set up an online community. Buy some hosting, pick the tool of your liking and without too much effort you should have set up a ‘community’ in no time.
However, just because you call it a community (or the software vendor does!) doesn’t make it a community. What you have done so far, [...]