Online Communities

For a few years, we assist to a new online phenomenon: Online communities. Websites such as FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Second Life, and World of Warcraft attract millions of internet users over the world. Cova, Kozinets and Shankar (2007) explains this phenomenon by the fact that we are more and more living in an individualistic and globalized society of progress in which we are loosing our roots.  The family is often destructured (more divorces for example), members of the family and friends spread all over the planet. Consequently, people are searching for ways to build new « roots » within a virtual community and then restore their social network. The Internet is enhancing this phenomenon by facilitating the creation of virtual communities in which internet users are able to get together and communicate with all kind of people whatever their location.

Browser based VS game based communities

These communities are of basically of two types: browser based communities or game based communities.

Technically, as the name says it browser based communities require the use of a regular internet browser (Internet Explorer, Modzilla, etc.). Facebook, Orkut, My Space are a few example. These networking websites, or social websites are they are often called, are usually linking people from all over the world, from all kind of background or demographics but having at some point an interest, an activity, an experience in common. People create a personal space, delivering an impressive amount of personal information from basic demographics information to music tastes, professional and personal activities, or even political / religion ideas. From this personal space people create their network with people they work with, used to go to school with, or who have the same interests and activities. The possibility to create new “relationships” are then unlimited.

The online gaming community on the other side requires its users to install specific software and often need a financial participation. Counter Strike, World of War craft, the Sims are a few examples. These online games are virtual places where people get together from around the world to play. These online games create a strong relationship between its participants even if they have nothing in common except the will to play and to achieve their mission’s objectives together.

Whatever the type of community chosen, the fact of being a part of an online community is a growing trend nowadays. People are spending more and more time connected to their computer, playing or managing their personal network (Weber, 2009).

Millions of people are spending hours everyday on these websites. What an audience for advertisers who are always seeking the best place to catch consumer, especially in the more personalized way!

A really interesting survey amongst social network users has been carried out by Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions (2007). The report, named "Word of the Web Guidelines for Advertisers" delivers key advices for the organisations that would want to exploit and make money with social networks. Some figures reveal very promising trends: 23% of social network users add comments on advertisements; 1 on 4 of them forward advertisements to their contacts; 60% of them declare that they would agree on placing sponsored content on their personal page and 43% have already visited a brand’s personal page. This survey evaluates the number of online social networks users to more of 215 millions of people. What a potential for marketers don’t you think?

Here is a huge opportunity for organisations to use these people and some companies are already developing global marketing strategies around very active virtual communities and some online social networks are becoming real promotion tools.

Possible ways to target them

The young people can be easily targeted with social networks. For instance banks nowadays are struggling with rising mortgage and credit card defaults it is not surprise that some of them have turned their attention to attract young consumers truth the social networks (Wilke, 2009). The Nederlands based institution ING has made their own social website designed to relate with potential home-buyers in order to exploit the opportunity to increase the number of their clients. They have specifically targeted different segments of the population by assigning sections of the site to the characteristical individual preferences. For example sections like “Oh Baby” or “Mobving in Together” have been planned to orientate towards the prospective cohabitants and new parents (Social Media Optimization, 2008)  . 

Following the sample of ING the company Fiserv which supplies back-end bill-payment and transaction technology to financial institutions choose different way to entice consumers. They launch Facebook application named MyMoney, which authorise the users to fulfil basic bank transactions such as paying the utility bills, making transfers or simply checking the current account balances. Various studies have proved that young people tend to prefer to use online banking rather than to physically visit a bank branch (Social Media Optimization, 2008)  . As a result such campaigns have won the trust and loyalty of the majority of the young Facebook users (Farquhar, Rowley, 2006).

References

Cova, B., Kozinets, R. and Shankar, A. (2007) ‘Consumer Tribe.’ Elsevier

Farquhar, J. and Rowley, J. (2006) 'Relationships and Online Consumer Communities.' Business process management journal 12, (2) 162-177

Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions (2007) ‘Word of the Web Guidelines for Advertisers’ [online] available from <http://www.techfiles.de/presse/PR/social_networking_exec_summary_347.pdf> [19 March 2009]

Social Media Optimization (2008)  ‘Banks Now Targeting Social Networks Like Facebook’ [online] available from <http://social-media-optimization.com/2008/08/banks-now-targeting-social-networks-like-facebook/ > [17March 2009]

Weber L. (2009) ‘Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business.’ Wiley.

Wilke, A.2009 ‘Online communities engage brands’ Revolution January 2009, p12-12