The Influence of the Virtual Community on Business

Businesses are effectively using the Internet as a tool to advertise their product, cut expenses and increase revenue. The Internet is a unique marketplace because of its ability to target the masses within the click of a mouse. Communities are the foundation of the virtual community and can be used to powerfully impact businesses. In order for a business to be able to take advantage of the social space, the different types of virtual community's must be understood.

Many different types of virtual communities exist such as direct, managed and participating. A direct community, such as the National Breast Cancer foundation community site, is owned and managed by a company with a specific purpose or internal target. Managed communities are managed by an organization and have platforms on different networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. For example, Dell has a Twitter page which is managed by corporate to maintain Dell's reputation is the social space. The participating community is usual managed by groups of user, those who are already on social networking sites and sometimes with proprietary software. An example of this type of community would be a specialty interest group where the product being discussed is related to the organization. Everyone is free to participate but has does not create any real statistical data within the community.

How can businesses leverage these different communities? Businesses must define a strategy which aligns with their marketing campaign. Someone who is marketing a handbag would not want to project the same strategy as someone who is focusing on support solutions. Those are two entirely different markets and need to be addressed separately. Setting a clear objective is important and will direct a marketer on which community to target. Depending on the audience the community choice varies. If you are creating a network strategy, direct and managed communities may be the most influential. These communities often provide direct linkage with the organization. Specific foundations have Facebook pages which allow for direct communication with the charity


These communities each allow for data sharing between influential users. Business' can benefit a great deal from having access to such a qualified pool with such ease. In addition, products can be analyzed before they hit the market to prevent future downfalls.