Online Communities...Facebook vs Video games

What is an Online Community?
Online community can mean different things to different individuals, Rheingold 1994; Wellman and Gulia 1999 explain that online community could be the idea of a group of people that are united by culture, but who do not have to live in the same country or city.
Accoding to Howard Rheingold, he described online communities as “ a cultural aggregations that emerge when enough people bump into each other often enough in cyberspace.” (Rheingold, 1994, p.57)
Example of browser based communities include facebook, myspace, bebo and online video games include Lord of the Rings, Warcraft and Age of Conan. The increase of social networking or online community is increasing drastically.

What is this we call community? – Personal Community


Importance to Marketing
Marketing is a vital aspect for an organisation, either by trying to market a product or a brand, this a part that must be played in order to fulfill the set aims and objective.
• Web browser’s creates an opportunity for organisations for a more corporate advertising to reach to consumers, either by reaching consumers through their demographic profile, income, age etc all which is represented by the consumer instead of traditional advertising such as TV adverts, Radio and Billboards. More interestingly, facebook was initially created for Harvard Students, but it was expanded, which helps organisations reach a wider segment of the population worldwide.
• Online Communities are a dynamic and unique PR and Marketing tools for oraganisations.
• Online communities can assist organisations in creating brand loyalty with the consumers as well as Relational Marketing which can build personal and long lasting relationship between a product and the consumer. For example, a consumer playing a online car game might select an automobile to complete his mission for the game, with the options of automobiles made available from Honda, BMW, Jaguar, Toyota etc, that consumer might use a BMW car and win the mission. In the mind of the consumer, BMW cars might be the best, fatest, with an impressive design and technology.
• It can also help in creating a competitive differentiation for an organisation from its competitors. For example the diagram below shows CNN also a member on facebook. (Diagram of print screen of CNN facebook account)
• With the innovation of online communities this creates a direct communication for organisations. This is very important and virtal for marketing, as organisations can promote and sell products and interact directly to the consumers and even stakeholders.
• Online communities also helps in creating brand and product awarness. According to Granovetter, 1973; Kling 1996 explains that the importance of online communities to marketing is that it creates the opportunity in making new contacts, raising awarness about new products and idead and the exchange of information between a consumer and orgainsation.
• Finally, marketing a product in an online community can help increase the occurrence on search engines such as Google, Live search and Yahoo.


Possible ways to target Online Communities
An online community has become a channel for marketers to reach consumers. The traditional methods in targeting consumers have been on TV, radios, newspapers and billboards cover. A study conducted by IDC Home: The Premier Global Market Intelligence Firm (www.idc.com/uk), consumers spend 32.7 hours a week online and about 16.4 hours watching TV. This goes to show that advertising budgets will mostly be spent on internet advertising.
As a marketer, we have decided to target consumers by segmenting them into different characteristics such as age groups and income. Below shows organisations such as CNN and McDonalds having a profile on face-book to connect with its consumer and attract and target future consumers.

Young Adults

As young adults spend more time on the internet, they are also highly influenced by celebrities. Researchers such as Kamins, 1990; Till and Busler, 1998 argues that celebrities are effective endorsers. For example, the SOS (Save Our Selves www.liveearth.org ) campaign which is a global awareness campaign about climate change had a concert and was broadcasted online via MSN. The spokesperson for the advert was Hollywood actress Cameron Diaz. This method can be used to target young adults worldwide.


Both male and female young adults can be targeted through the internet, either by online advertising on websites young adults are most likely to visit, such as Google, Yahoo, Bebo, MySpace and Face-book.

The Affluent

The Affluent population are consumers with a higher purchasing power as compared to kids and young adults. These consumers’ users are much more interested in high and rich technology tools. An example of targeting these consumers was conducted by Toyota’s community site for the campaign “Hybrid Synergy Drive: Everyone has their reason” which saw consumers getting on the site, each having an avatar and connecting with other consumers to share their experience of the Toyota car.

Limitations, Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Communities

Online communities serves a lot of advantages to consumers, organisations and marketers, an organisation can gather a consumers data online, which could be cheaper as to the traditionally method. Another advantage of online community is that it is flexible, as long as there is an internet connection, information can be accessed 24/7.
The limitation with advertising in an online community such as video games is that marketers are not able to target the market the way browser based website as face book target consumers when advertising, by segmenting the market into religion, income, age distribution etc.
One good thing about online communities is that, they have come to support real world interaction. For instance many of us who are international students here at Coventry keep up with events back home on face book because it provides us timely updates with pictures of what exactly is on. Online communities also give consumers and organisation an opportunity to maintain a relationship through virtual means.
The online video games are flexible as they allow the consumer to customize the characters to suit themselves, opportunity for personalized culture, where one can freely introduce or come up with codes, languages, even money to transact business in the game which can be adapted for their virtual existence in the virtual world. Though the games are quite interesting, the disadvantage to this is that lots of productive time is invested into it and you would be amazed that game addicts revise their schedules here in reality if need be to keep up with their co gamers online.
An advantage of an online game is that the consumer does not have to live their house just to have fun, especially for teenagers.


References

Rheingold, H. (1994). A Slice of Life in My Virtual Community. In L. M. Harasim (Ed.), Global Networks: Computers and International Communication (pp. 57-80). Cambridge: MA: MIT Press

Granovetter, M. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 78, 1360-1380.

Kling, R. (1996). Social Relationships in Electronic Forums: Hangouts, Salons, Workplaces and Communities. In R. Kling (Ed.), Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices (Second Edition) . San Diego: CA: Academic Press.

Wellman, B., & Gulia, M. (1999a). Net Surfers Don't Ride Alone. In B. Wellman (Ed.), Networks in the Global Village (pp. 331-366). Boulder: CO: Westview Press.

Kamins, M. A. (1990). An investigation into the "match-up" hypothesis in celebrity advertising: When beauty may be only skin deep. Journal of Advertising, 19(1), 4-13.

Till, B. D., & Busler, M. (1998).Matching products with endorsers: Attractiveness versus expertise. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 15(6), 576-586.