Importance of online communities

With the advent of the internet came a lot of new developments in the way people connect with one another. One of such ways is through the online communities. These communities are commonly referred to in different terms such as virtual communities, e-communities and, of course, online communities because the basic criteria for these groups' interactions is the use of the internet as a connection/communication platform as against meeting face-to-face for their purposes. Weber (2007:88) defined these virtual groups as ‘online sites where people aggregate around a common interest area’ and his examples include WebMD, ivillage and DailyCandy. Whatever the area of interest is to the aggregators, they always patronise these sites for information, networking, news or entertainment. Chaffey & Smith (2008: 163-4) argued for the importance of online communities saying the paradigm shift in communication means that marketers have to focus their attention on these offshoots of the new media. In this write-up, two types of online communities will be examined and they include browser-based and video game based communities.

Man is a sociable animal (Chavey and Smith 2008). People are not interested in living in isolation, they like interaction and communication.That is why people embraced virtual communities upon introduction. John Hagel (Hagel and Armstrong 1997) identifies the importance of virtual communities by saying ‘The rise of online communities in virtual networks has set in motion an unprecedented shift from vendors of goods and services to the customers who buy them. Vendors who understand this transfer of power and choose to capitalise on it by organising virtual communities will be richly rewarded with both peerless customer loyalty and impressive economic returns. There some disadvantages of virtual communities that has been noted by scholars. Some pointed out its lack of editorial control (Keen 2007).Others say it affects our culture and values (Chaffey and Smith 2008). However, the advantages are stronger when compared with its demerit. For example, people use it for opinions and views expression on topic, keep in touch with family and friends, dating avenues, have fun playing virtual games and above all expose you to the world of internet where you can access any specific thing you want to do with just a click.

Advantages and disadvantages of online communities

Speaking about online communities it is important to analyze each of their strengths and weaknesses in order to use them in achieving successful business purposes.
For example, video games is a popular subject of discussion at educational organizations, because one of the advantages of video games is the ability to develop children’s motor skills and social behaviour. Video games help to develop better level of concentration and affect kids remembering, memorizing, and linear thinking (PC Magazine 2006).
At the same time there is a problem with playing video games. According to Jane Simms video games develop addiction and promote sitting style of life, which leads to obesity (Director 2006).
Another representative of online community is browser based community, which allows people to interact without any specific equipment installation or software. It makes communication easier and allows many organizations to facilitate online conferences. Such things as frequent download of HTML in order to see new message, difficulty ‘to build the room for every member of conversation’, spam, not available archiving leave the opportunity for improvement of browser based communities (Journal of Website Promotion 2006).

How company can target the online community ?

Nowadays more and more people have spend their time on Face book, My Space, dating sites or online Game like War Craft and Lord of the rings. They have become a large online community. This group could be a huge potential for businesses to advertise events and products as most of people in this group have disposal income and time.

In order to make advantage of this group, businesses need to have clear marketing tactics. According to Miller, et (2009), companies can interact with online communities by many ways:
· Observing and collecting information
· Hosting or sponsoring communities
· Provide content to communities (such as music , information or entertainment)
· Participating as members of online communities
It is quite interesting that if companies do not have experiences of e-marketing, they can ask a web hosting company to do all jobs for them such as web man

aging and viral marketing to online communities. An example of web hosting in the UK is simplewebhosting.co.uk. All requirements of clients can be meet.

It is also quite effective when companies participate as members of online communities. They can either observe their customers’ behaviour or collect useful information for product consolidation. For example, with Second Life, companies can create their own entities for the purpose of brand advertisement. Also, You Tube is a place for cosmetic companies to post their beauty tutorials. Via clips, they can also receive comments and feedbacks from viewers and of course, if the clips are nice, they might go out and buy the similar products.

(Second Life )References:

Chaffey,D., Smith, P.R. (2008). e Marketing, e excellence: Planning and optimizing your digital marketing. London: Elsevier

Hagel, J. And Armstrong, A. (1997). Net Gain: Expanding market through virtual communities. Harvard Business Press

Keen, A. (2007). The Cult of Amateur: How the Democratisation of the Digital World is Assaulting Our Economy, Our Cultures and Our Values. Double day currency

Weber, L. (2007) Marketing to the Social WebNew Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Miller, K.D, Fabian, Fand Lin, S. J, (2009) ‘ Strategies for online communities’, Strategic Management Journal, 30, 305-322

http://jmo.e-contentmanagement.com/archives/vol/13/issue/4/review/124/journal-of-website-promotion-vol-1(1)

http://www.pcmag.co.uk/search/?subsection=&currentZone=articles&start=1&page=&articlesSort=date&downloadsSort=relevance&forumsSort=relevance&reviewsSort=relevance&staticSort=relevance&jobsSort=relevance&maxresults=20&articlesMax=20&downloadsMax=20&forumsMax=3&reviewsMax=20&staticMax=3&subsectionMax=20&jobsMax=3&articlesMinscore=65&reference=&sourceDisplay=&age=36500&source=+AND+%28information-technology%3ASOURCE%29&zone=downloads&q=online+communities

E-marketing:From E-ducation to E-business

With the global traffic on Internet increasing daily, it is imperative for universities to consider the module very relevant because it will help reposition student face global challenges in e-commerce and e-business as well as been dynamic in making decisions that have to do with internet marketing.

Moreover, universities use e-marketing module to test the success rate of their internal e-commerce business which they achieve through posting it on the intranet (for instance CU online of Coventry University website). They also use it to advertise their institution online for prospective students who are interested in studying in Coventry University.

E-marketing module in universities enables students to have a view of the new innovation in technology as well as its practical applications to business since most 21st century business revolve around e-business. Organisations buy and sell products by sharing databases online and hiring employees (Carolyn, 2004:5). Having seen how important this is to business world, it now leaves institutions with the task of teaching this module very well in order to equip their students to face the global challenge and competitiveness in the business world.

As e-marketing course has been in institutions for a while, the teaching pattern has remained a source of debate among scholars. Whichever method adopted, its pedagogical approach should be based more on implementation. Face to face medium of teaching should be imbibed as research shows that student prefer that more. (Sweeny & Ingram 2002)
Below are three critical learning methods which can be adopted:
•Critical Thinking
•Integrative Learning
•Memory Learning

Critical Thinking is a process of actively analysing, synthesizing, and evaluating the thinking process and improving on it.

Integrative Learning is a learning theory describing a movement towards integrated lessons which allows students make connections across curricula (Hutchings & Shulman 1999:13).

Memory Learning is the ability to remember what we are being taught. Examples of memory learning are observation, audio-visuals etc.

Obviously, the teaching of the practical terms of e-marketing in higher institutions of learning cannot be over emphasised. However, e-marketing has much more effects in the business world.

Nowadays more and more people want to follow the modern development of technologies and innovations, especially those in business industry, because the success and profit of businesses depend on how much they can offer customers and the ability to meet them wherever they are. Most of the potential customers spend their time on Internet that is why e-business is popular and profitable and that makes e- marketing the best tool to use. E-marketing gives businesses of any size access to the mass market at an affordable price and, unlike TV or print advertising, it allows truly personalised and interactive marketing. Specific benefits of e-marketing include:

-global reach
- lower cost
- trackable, measurable results
- 24-hour marketing
- personalisation
- one-to-one marketing
- more interesting campaigns
- better conversion rate

Together, all of these aspects of e-marketing add up to more sales (http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/). More sales bring more profit. It makes e-marketing a vital part of each business. Practical examples of application of e-marketing in different industries help to understand the importance of e-marketing in business industries. Top brand communications are transforming from monologue to dialogue, from persuasion to engagement and from the push media to the pull media (Chaffey et al, 2003:311). Good examples of these are the last two TV grand prix winners at the International Advertising Awards ( Dove’s Inner Beauty and Cadbury’s Gorilla commercials that were first viewed and made popular by the online audience (canneslions.com). Companies such as Google and YouTube have become legendary brands in just a couple of years with little or no advertising budget (Weber, L. 2007:102).

Another benefit of e-marketing has been witnessed in the drastic development of the virtual business industry. From Amazon to Argos and iTunes Store, the world has seen the growth of virtual sales in which buyers make transactions with retailers without any real contact.
Virtual customer service as used by Orange telecommunication is a good example of using the internet to market services and products to both existing and prospective consumers.
E-mails have also played a major role in information dissemination from the marketers to the end users. In this case, we have some marketers that build up a database of consumer emails while others simply buy them from outside, all for the purpose of communicating brand values to the public.

References:

Siegel, Carolyn F. (2004) Internet marketing: foundations and applications. Boston, MA: Houghton Miffin.

Hutchings P & Stiuman, L (1999). The schorlarship of teaching change 31(5), 10-15

Chaffey, D., Mayer, R., Johnston, K., & Ellis-Chadwick, F., (2003) 2nd ed. Internet Marketing Strategy, Implementation and Practice.Essex: Pearson Education Limited.

Weber, L. (2007) Marketing to the Social Web. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Sweeney, Jillian C. and Deborah Ingram (2002), ' A comparison of Traditional and Web-Based Tutorials in Marketing Education: An Exploratory Study,' Journal of Marketing Education, Vol.23 (1), 55-62.