Passenger Expands Participant Brand Propagation to Facebook and Twitter

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Passenger, creator of online brand communities that drive customer advocacy and insight, today announced that its community members can now share the activities that are conducted within Passenger?s private branded communities on Facebook and Twitter. The activation of this optional feature is controlled entirely by brand community managers and provides members with the ability to share certain images, videos and other activities from private communities to their public social networks. Passenger?s new functionality now enables brand advocates to tell a much larger audience about their positive experiences in helping shape the direction of a brand, further promoting customer loyalty and brand awareness.

?Many of our community members are strong and productive advocates representing an authentic voice for the brands we serve?

Since launching in 2005, the Passenger application has been successfully providing household-name brands with direct and perpetual customer connection. While the communities? primary purpose is to serve as a research tool for brand marketers, product development executives and market researchers, they have naturally become catalysts for word-of-mouth marketing and brand advocacy as members are among the more vocal social media participants who are eager to share their experiences with friends, family and colleagues.

According to Facebook, the average user has 120 friends, and more than half of Facebook's 300+ million user base visits the site every day. In addition, Pew Research estimates that 19 percent of Internet users used Twitter in August 2009. By giving community managers of Passenger-powered communities the option to enable the external content sharing feature, Passenger is creating an opportunity for a brand?s most engaged customers to expand their advocacy from behind closed doors to these popular public social networks.

?Many of our community members are strong and productive advocates representing an authentic voice for the brands we serve,? said Steve Howe, CEO, Passenger. ?By providing members with an easy mechanism to promote their brand allegiance, we are enabling scalable brand propagation while validating the voices of our members.?

The Facebook and Twitter share feature is currently available in all Passenger communities. The default setting is configured to be inactive so community managers can control all content sharing.

About Passenger

Passenger creates and manages online brand communities for some of the world?s leading companies that increase customer engagement, encourage consumer advocacy and harness community insight to drive better business decisions. With its highly-trained services team and the intuitive social networking, collaboration and analytics application, Passenger helps clients such as JC Penney, Chrysler, Coca-Cola and Fox directly connect with their customers. Founded in 2005 with offices in Los Angeles, Palo Alto and New York, the company is privately held and funded by Shelter Capital Partners, StarVest Partners and Steamboat Ventures. For more information, please visit www.thinkpassenger.com.