Online Communities

In this day in age, there are few people who do not know what an online community is. However, there are still people in the business world who have not fully discovered the extent to which online communities can benefit their business. An online community is a network of Internet users who gather, either actively or inactively, to communicate, connect, and disperse information to other members of the same community.

The benefit of an online community is a pre-existing group to whom a business can market and advertise their product or service without having to gather the group in the first place. Blogging, social networking, and video-sharing are just a few examples of online communities that businesses can promote to that are able to receive information passively - and at the same time, save companies big money.

Online community marketing is extremely cost-effective and efficient, and as such, many technologically-savvy business owners have already taken advantage by blogging, creating social media marketing profiles, and gathering mini-networks. If you think online community marketing is a good avenue for your business to explore, consider starting a blog, joining Facebook or MySpace, or posting a video on YouTube to start taking advantage of a pre-existing network to whom you can market to.