The degree of control that an organization has over its online customer community depends on where that community resides. The primary arguments against launching a customer community platform involve time, resources, and costs. However, organizations that rely on a disparate community strategy across public social media sites (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) limit their ability to drive high levels of engagement. This report compares the benefits to an organization of hosting a customer community through its own web property with the challenges of relying solely on public social media outlets.