customers pr doing this. This is reich social media engagement behavio anged the However, as researchers have witnessed, 'online bral consumers complain by providing a space for them to easily and quickly voje sureif discontent towards the brand's product and service failure (Yuan et al., 2070 14). The downside is that product discussions can become negative; the word. ones are referred to as firestorms such as '#deleteUber and United Airlines' passenger removal incidents' (Herhausen et al., 2019, p. 1). Firestorms can result in damaged business reputations, loss of business and boycotting of products or services, This is why organisations need to carefully monitor content across online communi ties and identify when negative discussions are taking place. For how to respond, see section 6.7.4 'Responding to community feedback'. 6.6.2 SOCIAL SELLING The role of online communities is changing and in some cases they are becoming sales channels, which has been described as social selling. Social selling has been defined as 'a selling approach, which leverages social and digital channels for understanding, connecting with, and engaging influencers, pros- pects and existing customers at relevant customer purchasing journey touchpoints for building valuable business relationships' (Ancillai et al., 2019, p. 303). CASE EXAMPLE 6.2 LegoR Ideas Community LEGO@ toy bricks have been made in Denmark for nearly 100 years. They encourage creativity in children who have to build their own toys using the blocks. The results include a range of creations such as buildings, pianos, ships and dragons - it can be totally random! They're often handed down from one generation to the next, so they are recycled many times. In 1987 LEGO launched the BRICK KICKS magazine to motivate children (and their parents) to share the best LEGO creations and be inspired by others to make new items. This was digitised and moved online to become the Lego@ Ideas Community. The website (ideas. lego.com) explains the community's purpose: Love getting imaginative with LEGO bricks? Fancy yourself as a LEGO master builder Well, this is the place to be. Share your cool creations and creativity, enter prize come petitions, showcase your proposals for new LEGO Ideas sets and vote for awesome models dreamt up by your fellow fan designers.ONLINE COMMUNITIES 169 This is a community of interest with a sense of belonging and it's based on seeing new creations. If you're a keen LEGO user, the competitions are an incentive to show- case your skills. Plus, it's not just for children as there are worldwide architectural competitions where teams are invited to build LEGO models of their favourite buildings or structures. On average, the website gains over 3 million visitors worldwide every year. The growth of the community will vary as some children stop using LEGO and others discover the toy bricks for the first time. Adding competitors and getting schools involved are a clever way to nurture the group and encourage more time to be spent there. Case questions . What are the benefits of the LEGO Ideas Community for the LEGO brand? . This community has been established for some years - how can the community man- agers ensure it does not decline? . What rules of engagement would be useful on this website? unities actice, inter