Managing an online community 'helps promote business'
Thursday, 17, Jul 2008 10:52
Creating and managing an online business community can be an effective way to promote a business, a new survey has shown.
The biggest appeal for firms is increasing word of mouth communication about a firm, with 35 per cent of those with online communities perceiving it as important.
Increasing brand awareness was also seen as a major benefit by 28 per cent, the report, conducted by Beeline Labs, Deloitte, and the Society for New Communications Research, found.
Creating new business ideas and increasing customer loyalty were also cited as good reasons to run online communities.
The 2008 Tribalisation of Business report also discovered that cautious executives who did not understand the potential benefits of the service were the biggest obstacle to establishing the social networks.
It found that the most useful contributors to an online company were the ability to network with possible business contacts, enabling discussion of a "hot topic" and a good-quality manager.
Chris Thomas, founder of search engine optimisation (SEO) firm Reseo, remarks that blogging can also help in promoting a firm.
Writing for SmArtcompany, he says a good-quality blog could give the impression of being an industry leader and supply relevant information to consumers, something which could help in SEO.
