Man, have things changed.

Today brands recognize the profound value that community can deliver if it is properly designed and managed. They are so serious about community that they are pushing it out to every marketing channel, including mobile and Facebook. And whether the primary reason for their online presence is to sell product or to attract, enlighten, entertain, and ultimately engage their best customers, they understand that community has evolved to become a significant contributor to the top and bottom lines.

Naturally, something as business-critical as community is no longer the exclusive province of interactive marketers. Numerous organizations now have a hand in the community’s design, management and integration with the rest of the business. And the fortunes of yet other parts of the business rise and fall with the success of the community.

We’ve helped launch and grow over 500 brand communities, and along the way we’ve gained a lot of insight into how community affects people in a number of different roles. We’ve rolled that insight into a new section of our site that, oddly enough, we’ve entitled Roles. We’ve boiled our experience down to a manageable, but complete, discussion of 12 role categories.

Some of these roles are involved in the design, launch and day-to-day management of community. For people in these roles - Analytics, Community Management and Moderation, Content, Design, Development, Marketing, Mobile and Social – we describe their challenges as we have witnessed them, and explain the Pluck product features or Demand Media services and business practices that we’ve developed to address those challenges.

Others roles are peripheral to community execution but are nonetheless key constituents. For people in these roles – e-Commerce, Management, Revenue and IT – we explain the particular value of Pluck community to them.

Check out our discussion of Community and Roles. If you’ve got colleagues who are struggling with the challenges we describe, send them a link to the appropriate section. If you think we’ve gotten something wrong, by all means let us know. And, if having read about how we can make your job easier, you’ve decided you want to know more, drop us a line.