Did you know that while 67 percent of women under 40 feel as strongly about their Internet communities as those in the physical world, only 38 percent of men said the same, according to a recent report by the Annenberg Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California. Apparently, men are manifesting some symptoms of “network fatigue”!
Without a doubt, social network users tend to become part of online communities in which they share interests and opinions. Moreover, there are different types of online communities. And businesses should understand their differences in order to obtain better marketing results and target their products and services correctly. For example, becoming a member of groups that embrace social or charity causes can help you reinforce a positive business image. It use to be all about trust marks and testimonials, now it’s about your fan pages, groups and social connections.
Rod Howard, founder of Telligent, an enterprise collaboration software company, made an interesting categorization of online communities:
- Direct Communities are those online communities that are owned and managed by a certain company. The business runs and manages the community and obtains valuable data from users who become part of it. Some examples are the Starbuck’s blog or Dell community. These types of communities may include internal employee-target communities that can be useful in order to motivate and know your worker’s demands and concerns.
- Managed communities are started and managed by an organization or business but are run on customer-facing social networking sites (Twitter profile, Facebook page, among others). In this case, the social networking sites are the ones that get benefits of the data they obtain from customers.
- Participating communities are started and managed by individuals or users. Some examples of such communities are fan profiles and independent groups that show enthusiasm towards a product or brand. Of course that organizations can participate, but they don’t have authority or access to data.
Okay, now that you know this, let’s see which type of community best suits your business concerns. Even so, remember that the first thing you have to do is identify your goals and your target audience.
- Direct communities can be useful when you need to give support to your current customers, or if you want to measure results much easily.
- Managed communities can be a good option to reach new customers and increase your visibility and popularity.
- Participating communities can help you know if users are connected with your business voluntarily.
On the other hand, being aware statistics on online community is crucial for your strategy. It is a good way to find out where to focus on. For instance, as we said in the beginning of this article, if you know that women are more likely to become members of such groups, you can focus on them and then, you can find alternative ways to reach the male audience.
Taking the time to analyze which communities best suit your business is crucial in order to optimize your time and reach your marketing goals!
Sources:
How Businesses can Harness the Power of Online Communities
Study: More women embracing Web communities
