We introduced you all to Posterous, a blog publishing platform, yesterday, and today we’re going to show you how you can use it to create a community.

Posterous is a hosting service that takes care of the tech for you. To start a site, all you have to do is email post@posterous.com your first post. Then you pick your sub-domain name, and Posterous creates your site and posts whatever it is – text, audio, video, pictures – you send them.

Make a VIP site

When you register with Posterous, you can select the privacy settings for your site. You can make it password protected, so the entire site is only available to those who know the password. This is one way to create a community of customers or users.

You can use Posterous to create a site for your VIP customers – those who spend a certain amount, buy a select deal, recommend your site/products/services, etc – and on this site post insider information and tips, offer select deals and so on. It’s giving a bonus to your best customers, which is a great way to inspire brand loyalty and repeat purchasing.

Create a Collective

You can also use Posterous to create a community by making it a group-created site. You can enable other contributors the ability to post by adding their email addresses to the site registry. Then, all they have to do is email post@yoursitename.posterous.com and their content is added to the site.

And all posts and comments are emailed out to the contributors, so everyone knows when something new has been added. This is a great way to engage your product or service users and customers and create a network. Since Posterous sends the emails, your customers don’t have to worry about sharing their emails with strangers.

You can create a community blog as part of an opt-in package, as a bonus, or as a reward for purchasing the product or service. Users can post questions, and find answers, connect with other customers, and learn new product information.

It’s important to note that any time you give a customer the power to voice his or her opinion on a company site, you need to lay some ground rules about language. You should also be prepared for any negative comments, so make sure your customer service is excellent and your product is worth the price. If you’re doing anything duplicitous, it will come back to you, whether you create a community site or not.

You will have the ability to delete posts, so if an offensive comment is posted, it doesn’t have to stay. Just make sure you inform users about the rules and guidelines when they are given access.

These are just two ways to use Posterous to promote your business, can you think of more?