Virtual Communities:
A New Form of Communication with Consumers
Article that inspired this post: click here
Journal
Electronic Commerce ResearchPublisher
Springer Netherlands
ISSN
1389-5753 (Print) 1572-9362 (Online)
Subject
Business and EconomicsIssue
Volume 6, Number 1 / January, 2006DOI
10.1007/s10660-006-5988-7
Pages
57-73
Online Date
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
This
article was taken from an online journal whose name- “Electronic Commerce Research”- also gives light to its specialized focus of articles. If you have never heard of Virtual Communities or you have and are now curious to see how they can be a positive contributor to Marketing strategies, than by all means read on.
In fact I would encourage anyone who has had personal experience with being part of these virtual communities and taking part in helping companies in their marketing research, to write your comments and thoughts. Now if your thinking…”Well I’ve never participated in these so called virtual communities and I’ve never helped a multi-billion dollar corporation design a product….chances are you have and just may not have realized it when you did do it. No worries…I’m here to explain to you how these marketing tactics all work and how they use the virtual communities that many of you frequently visit (knowingly or otherwise) to access your thoughts, ideas, and more at little cost to them and – on many times- no monetary pay for you. I’m here to give you- as the title of my page states- “The Know How” of how it all works in the marketing world.
Now let me state this right now, I think the use of using virtual communities online as a means for companies to get a better idea of what the consumers want from their company’s products is great!!! Absolutely fantastic!! But I also believe the public should be informed on what is actually going on around them when they voluntarily enter the Internet. (I have also produced links on my page that connect to other students in my class who want to share their knowledge and opinions of what goes on in the marketing world.)
Now there are two ways to view how Marketers obtain their information from consumers on the web.
There is the incorrect notion given in the example below:
Many unsuspecting internet users come upon a site regarding a specialized interest of theirs (hence a virtual community of a certain topic) and take part in expressing their thoughts…..only to find themselves added into an “elite” group of consumers who then became the voice for all potential consumers who may one day purchase the item-in-question. It is an item that is being developed at the particular moment and its “customization” is being formulated through the opinions and preferences on this particular “elite” and true-few group of random internet browsing consumers.
OR
There is the more comprehensive and thoroughly exhaustive process that a company goes through in order to obtain the group of consumers that can correctly encompass the concerns that a majority of consumers will hold. The article I previously mentioned above; concerning how members of virtual communities are brought into the product development process is provided in this link.
Now my opinion of using this type of marketing channel to enhance products in production and make them more appealing was formulated after I read this article. It explains how a company would integrate members to obtain valuable information that the company can then use in their new product development (known in short as NPD). This article explains how the four writers on this journal article took part in an Audi infotainment case and how this was successfully implemented using what they term as “Community Based Innovation” (CBI for short). This is a four step process that helps obtain the right consumers. It was compared with three stage NPD process. In this process, the three stages are Idea Generation and Concepts, Design and Engineering, and finally Test and Launch. According to the writers of the article in reference to the NPD three-step process, “The novelty of these approaches compared to conventional online market research is that users are not only asked about their opinions, wants and needs. They are invited to contribute their creativity and problem solving skills by generating and evaluating new product ideas, elaborating a detailed product concept, evaluating or challenging it, discussing and improving optional solution details, selecting or individualizing the preferred virtual prototype testing and experience in the new product features by running simulation, getting information about the new product or just consuming it”. As an example they described and gave the internet address of a company called Peugeot that had an internet-based design contest for car designs. The theme was “Retrofuturism”. (
www.peugeot-avenue.com)
They then advocated for their CBI approach saying that it, “offers a deeper understanding of how to integrate consumer into NPD”. The four major steps are:
1) To determine user indicators:a. They claim that “different type of users exist within online communities”. To group the varieties, they categorize the internet users. According to the article, “a “tourist” is lacking strong social ties to the group and has a rather small or only contemporary interest in the topic. The “mingler” maintains strong social ties but is not really into the topic. The “devotee” on the contrary is highly involved with the topic but not very much related to the community. The “insider” is strongly associated with the community and highly involved in the topic.
b. They want the “devotee” and the “insider”. They see them as lead users that “have product and service needs that are ahead of all other user groups in a given market. The additionally possess in depth technical knowledge and a general understanding of product functionalities.”
2) Get community identification:a. Here they search for the online communities where the “devotees” and “insiders” can be found. Some companies even operate their own communities and use them as a way to bring in those specific users that hold those characteristics. The article sites the womensnet of Henkel (
http://www.womensnet.de/ ) and the advisory community of Procter and Gamble (
http://www.pg.com/) as some of these companies.
3) Create a virtual interaction design:
a. Here they discussed how “to set up an interaction process with community members the particular characteristics of the community need to be considered, that is their language, netiquette and norms as well as the motivation of the individual community member to share their knowledge and ideas….the design of the virtual interaction had to be tailored to its participants and to the development (sub) tasks(s) transferred to them.”
b. The writers of the article also say, “Managers, who believe that consumers can be motivated to participate only by monetary incentives…are mistaken in most cases. Intrinsic incentives like the demand for new and better products…..definitely do have a great impact on community members’ motivation to virtually take part in new product development.
4) Have user access and participation:a. They finally talk about the final stage in the process where, “Once online communities are identifies for integration and the virtual interaction platform is programmed and tested the members can be accessed and contacted. E-mails, banners, pop-up windows, or short articles can be used to get in touch with the community members and inform them about their role in the innovation project.
They go on to talk about the Audi project, where once implemented Audi fans meet at
www.Audiworld.com. They concluded by explaining how the Audi project helped promote the CBI approach to Marketing in virtual communities in order to better product development.
Now I'd like to hear your thoughts on virtual communities and thier effects on marketing. Feel free to leave a comment in regard to this post or any of my other future posts.
The Ruminator
