Online or virtual communities, allow people with common interests to meet, communicate and share ideas and information, through a network like the web. While doing this, participants develop bonds with each other and the community as a whole. Online communities have emerged as one of the most potential levers of action the web. Such communities can be built around demographic groups - students, parents, professional groups - doctors or programmers or who share a particular personal interest - bikers or clock repairers.
Threaded by a common interest, community participants have a lot to share with each other. Once established, online communities provide a new way for brands to reach customers with special interest in their products.
How do online communities interact
Online communities interact by virtue of their shared passion. They can be found in a variety of web destinations offering expression to interest-related activities. Like discussion forums, book sites, auction sites, trading/exchange sites, blogs and so on. The tools used are generally message boards, blogging applications, text chat, VoIP.
Online communities - the hottest buzzword online
Interest in online communities has grown as they have been seen as a powerful new tool that can create new business opportunities and can be a source of substantial revenues. Understanding the dynamics of online communities, growing and sustaining these communities, is emerging as a critical business skill in the online arena.
Forward thinking companies are already cashing in on the benefits that can accrue from such initiatives.
The business opportunities in online communities
The first is about direct marketing, the second and third involve collaborative marketing. None are mass marketing strategies; the Internet is not, and may never be, an effective mass marketing vehicle.
Build — create and maintain a virtual community of customers
Sponsor — advertise in a community or sponsor community content
Participate — provide content as an interactive participant in a virtual community
The building blocks of an online community
Online virtual communities make use of a range of technologies that support person-to-person and person-to-group communications. The enabling technologies facilitate two distinct types of communication:
Real time (or synchronous) Communication: through text chat and instant messaging
Non-real time (or asynchronous) Communication: through message boards, mail lists, member and community web pages, and surveys.
Additionally virtual communities also depend on a member database and may also include technologies to support registration, electronic commerce, directories (of products, services, suppliers, etc.) and searches (for searching member profiles, community documentation, reports, articles, transcripts, archives, etc.).
Our experience in online communities
D’zine Garage is the only interactive agency in India who has specialized in the science and art of building, sustaining and growing online communities. Thanks to some of our future-focused clients who have provided us the opportunity. The task calls for highly specialized skills, an intuitive feel for the brand and its community and the commitment to keep at it with a passion. Despite the fact that results in this arena often take time to show up. A critical factor to the success is mutual trust between members, the community managers and sponsors.
We currently manage a number of niche community websites each with their own specialized Content Managers, which have demonstrated impressive results for our clients in their business.