Nowadays internet is becoming a part of our daily life. There are people that use the internet to read the news, check the stock market and gaming. But amongst there are millions of people that they are members of massive online communities. We have communities like Facebook, Myspace or Travium which are browser based and we have the video game communities with Blizzard and their greater success World of Warcraft leading the market with twelve million subscribers paying the monthly fee of 12 euros and being followed by other games like Age of Conan and Lord of the Rings and much more. We as marketers need to find a way to approach those massive communities and sent them our message, show them our products by finding a way to approach them.
On browser communities is easier to approach them because in order for them to socialize by using Facebook or the other services they are using they need to do it by using internet browsers but on video games you can’t sent your message directly to them because is hard to sent the message through the game. Also the number of people that are using browsing communities is way bigger than the number of people being members in browser game communities. Approximately a number of 148 million users use web 2.0 on a daily basis. This includes websites like Facebook and myspace. By trying to approach people that are using Facebook we have the option to approach a massive number of people because almost everyone nowadays that is familiar with the internet has a Facebook account. People are joining groups of their countries, University, football team or other sport teams that they support and it’s easier to approach them. This kind of websites also give you the option to advertise through their websites.On online communities people are providing every kind of information. You can see their age, if they are married or not, if they are in a relation or if they are single, if they have children. You can also see their interests because many of them post on their community groups what they did during the weekend or during their vacation or what they are doing during their daily life. They also have the option to post pictures and by viewing their pictures in some situations we can evaluate if the customers are proper for promoting our products to them. This is very important for marketers because with this way they can get all the information they need for their target customers and they know if the specific person is appropriate to receive our message or not. When it comes to video games the number of people you can target is much smaller because almost all of us have a Facebook account or other online socializing accounts but not everybody plays online video games. Also the number of video game users is spread out through a large number of video games. The most important part of this category of potential customers is that they are all fans of playing games. If you have a company that sells computer equipment then the whole group could be your target. Also the information gathering you can get from this particular group is not as high as the opposite of browser based online communities.
Targeting these communities is really vital for the company because we are talking for a significant number of users. This group of people spent a lot of their daily time browsing the internet and a large number of these users prefer doing their purchases through the internet. It’s important to use online communities because there is ease of communication by using forums which can be used for discussion that might not be available by using traditional research. By the use of these communities we can strengthen the bond between our organization and our customers and achieve loyalty through personal investment. Online communities can be used to strengthen or change our brand image. Also these groups can be used for testing in case we want to test our products or even our advertising campaign.
Since this group of potential customers seems so attractive for being a target we have to find a way to target them. The easier way to target people that are members of online communities which are browser based is by advertising through the community. Facebook, Myspace give you the opportunity to by using ads in their website which can be viewed by a large number of people. If we create an account on these communities we can promote our products by posting advertise pictures or even videos that have been made for this purpose. When targeting people from video game communities you cant deliver your message through the game. On some games like second life you can buy a spot and advertise your company. But on games like World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings and other games u cannot do the same. We can use websites which are dedicated to the games to promote our products. Because these kind of games are frequently update in order to keep the interest high there are many pages that provide all kinds of information on the games.
Online communities continuously grow and they will keep growing because internet entered our life and will keep all of us busy for a long time. Day after day more and more people get more familiar with the internet and a large number of them will become a member of an online community and a potential target. Browser based communities are more common than video game communities and its easier for us to sent our message to them and they seem the best option if we want to promote our products to one of the groups. We have to invest on this group of people and try to promote our products because the future lies on the internet and the rapidly increasing internet communities.

References

Walden, E. (2000). Some value propositions of online communities. Electronic Markets, 10(4), 244-249.

Preece, J. and Diane Maloney-Krichmar (2003) Online Communities. In J. Jacko and A. Sears, A. (Eds.) Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc. Publishers. Mahwah: NJ. 596-620.

Armstrong, A., & Hagel III, J. (1995). Real profits from virtual communities. The Mckinsey Quarterly

Bickart. B., & Schindler, R. M. (2001). Internet forums as influential sources of consumer information. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 15(3), 31-40.

Krishnamurthy, S. (2003). E-commerce management: Text and cases. Australia: South-Western, a division of Thompson Learning.




MA Deniz FIRAT