By Carlisle Holm
Until recently, business corporations dismissed most online communities as merely a platform for gaming and entertainment. However, with the youth market becoming more and more viable by the day, this segregation of potential costumers online represents a great way for business organizations to reach out in the cheapest possible manner. Communities like MySpace have expanded to over a 100 million users worldwide and recent estimates suggest that nearly 300000 people join up on MySpace every day. More and more bands use MySpace as a tool to showcase their talent as it enables them to get a larger base without much additional expense. With such growth on the block, it would be rather naïve to neglect this upcoming tool for future business growth.
The biggest advantage of going online is that you can reach out to a large audience base without spending loads on television ads or banner campaigns. Business corporations can benefit for getting in touch with online communities have a large number of potential customers. Advertising in those communities has its benefits in the fact that the customers now view the company as more accountable and reachable. Most customers prefer to get in a quick response via an online community instead of writing a letter to an anonymous executive without getting proper correspondence on whether their needs were heard or not. Further more one can also reach out to a large like-minded base instead of spending millions of conventional advertising.
The beauty of online interaction lies in its simplicity, cost effectiveness and quickness. A newsletter to a selected group of customers can often lead to better results than widespread media campaign for the basic reason that you are reaching out to a selected group of people who have a high probability of being your customers at some point of time or the other. Besides proper service online often leads to a growth in business as most people who buy online are likely to review it in a social website or community. A good review can result in more business while a negative review noticed early can give the company time to re-establish it's credibility by reaching out to it's customers online. Also a live costumer representative in social media can help the customer find a quick fix solution without incurring much expense for the company. With almost every single teenager having a profile on MySpace or Facebook, more and more teen oriented companies are now establishing communities in the above mentioned social networking sites so that they can remain in touch with their customer base. With a wide range of social networking and communities to choose from, going online can save the company much needed time and resources in finding out it's potential customers.
In addition, online communities can also aid companies in organizing business interactions and meetings without the need for high traveling expenses. This is especially true for small business corporations many of which have taken the route of going online and have yielded rich dividends. With personal communication taking a beating due to higher fuel costs, going online is a smart way of reaching out to your costumers and expanding your business to newer horizons with minimum of effort.
| Carlisle Holm the owner of Business News. He writes various business and finance articles |
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