Present characteristics of virtual communities
A virtual community has been defined as a community of people who share common ideas, interests, and feelings over the internet i.e. (instant messaging, emails, chat rooms, website, etc.) or other collaborative networks (Rheingold, 1993). The membership of these virtual communities are not interpreted by an individual’s participation like community participants may make insignificant contributions themselves, as they fully absorb the experience information garnered from the community (Sundar, 2017). Howard Rheingold is a major contributor and the pioneers of the virtual communities who has been recognised for inventing the term “virtual community,” and has written a book ‘the virtual community.” Back in 1985, Howard launched ‘the well” a computer conferencing system. The Well better known as the primordial ooze is a treasured destination for conversation and discussion. “The Well” formed the basis of an online community which has emerged over the years. Examples include SK-gaming, which brings together over a million gamers and its large community with a lot of content about the community.
Composition and Activity
The people who make up virtual communities are defined by a kind of boundary as the identifier of membership. Also, the community is unified by a common activity that they engage in. The range of individual making virtual communities could be built by a given group of people of diverse age. It is possible to be a member of many virtual communities at the same time. The activity that the members engage in could be discussions, work, play, education and exchange of information among others.
Social organisation
Virtual communities are organised without ties to a given time and place. Therefore, the geographical position of an individual and the time plays no significant role in defining the membership of the virtual community. However, the community is organised in such a way that they communicate freely at their chosen times and location.
With the world having a total population of 7.3 billion as in 2016, 47% of it these people have access to the internet (World Bank, 2016) hence creating a target market for most corporations. Many businesses have adopted virtual communities to support their business. Practitioners are engaged in search of suitable models for conducting e-commerce. Unlike virtual communities that are developed from interpersonal motivations, e-commerce virtual commercial communities represent a community whose participants reach a consensus of providing information to the clients at regular intervals over a period (Reid, 2017).
Virtual communities may be social, professionally or commercially oriented (Markus, 2002). Amazon.com is an example of an organisation that is making use of virtual communities of commerce to support its e-business model. Amazon has been described as the company that legitimised e-commerce and arguably an excellent and successful company in USA (Vries, 2005). Amazon.com was founded in 1995 under the name “Earth’s Biggest Book Store” by Jeffrey Bezos. The initial business model of Amazon included taking up the retailer slot in the value chain, where it bought books from Ingram and through its website sold them to the retailer. Today Amazon uses algorithms to generate a recommendation for their customers by using customers buying history and comparing it to that’s of other customers with similar purchasing habits (Greg Linden, 2003).
How organizations are using virtual communities to support their strategy and business model
The success of Amazon which has diversified from its core products i.e. books, CDs and DVs and has now ventured into online groceries, Film and TV production, as well as cloud computing (Simpson, 2016), is supported by its marketing strategy. Amazon utilises universal behaviour and way of thinking of its customers and makes use of the existing communication infrastructure to freely offer its wide range of products by use of a customer-friendly interface. Amazon also exploits affiliate products to help it scale from small to large.
Amazon.com drew customer into a virtual community where readers were invited to give their reviews, and they were rated by other website visitors. The online reviews help customers make a decision if a book is worth buying (Gregory, 2017) and ensures that a relationship is maintained between the company and customer resulting in customer loyalty. Amazon created forums that allowed visitors to chat with one another. As a result, Amazon has become more of destination for many shoppers than just a book Store. Amazon is the first e- retailer to respond to it customers’ orders by e-mailing an immediate feedback. Adoption of this strategy has seen Amazon customers accept their business model. Back in 1999, Amazon.com was the only online shopping destination that offered on its home page a link to its “shipping policies” (Sampson, 2008).
Due to a large number of internet users, e-commerce continues to thrive and the standard e-commerce principle of getting big fast plays a significant role in the growth and consolidation of internet customers. The global growth of trade, as well as the global reach of the web, encourages a winner-takes-all business domain. The result of the globalisation of business and internet had led to lowering of cost across demand and supply chains (Symonds, 1999), and also redefining the relationship that exists between Amazon and its virtual customers who initially were readers before Amazon diversified.
Amazon achieved its success by offering quality service to its virtual clients and rather not on timing. Over the years online books purchasers preferred Amazon more to the experience offered by other online bookstores. When Amazon expanded its physical operations, its vision blurred like for most other web-based companies. Holding stock mean that Amazon had to incur costs previously not experienced when it relied only on the virtual side of the business (Sampson, 2008)
The purpose of the community and the needs of the members define the kind of instruments that will be adopted, and the nature of the community forged. Accessing the internet, computer and browser models, access cost and time and geographic zones all affect the type of community developed (Tom, 2007). The following tools are extensively used.
How the organization adopted virtual communities
Drop-Box- This is a personalised cloud storing the service i.e. online backup. Dropbox is used majorly for file sharing among members of an online community.
Google docs, – This is a free web based application. Here documents one document can be worked on at the same time and stored by different members of the online community.
Skype-This internet based application allows someone to add up to 250 people to online discussion or meeting.
Engaging in Virtual communities may pose some challenges to the corporation. The problems if not carefully addressed may cause failure to establishing a successful relationship with the customer. When companies interact and exchange information on their products and other innovative ideas with clients, a successful interaction should be enhanced to ensure there is an improvement in the innovation process.
Adoption of virtual communities has enabled small online business stay afloat as few coast are involved with the web-based organisation as they can procure the goods from the supplier and ship them directly to the customer without having to keep a stock of the product. Also, virtual communities have the potential to increase the success of marketing and distribution of goods over the internet where a global market exists (Hagel, 1999). The existence of demand and supply in this virtual market goes far in enhancing sales and in reducing the cost associated with physical premises and therefore increasing the profitability of the organisation. However, virtual communities have an adverse impact on the organisation as it affects their ability to interact with its customers on face to face mediums as there is the capability to remain anonymous over the chat where real identities of participants are not given.
Adoption of virtual communities has helped organisations also be in a position to visualise the consequence on themselves of behaviour that they are holding on. When companies have the ability to reflect on the consequences of their behaviour, they can achieve growth. For example, Microsoft Kinetic has developed games for this purpose. Virtual communities like traditional communities have vices that are not regarded as ethical in practice. Companies should be on the watch out for the serious risk that virtual communities may put them into (Lee, 2012).
Virtual communities have revolutionised how business go about their daily activities. Initially, personal selling and physical premises established for business were essential to the success of the firm. However, with the growth and adoption of the virtual communities the demand and supply are done online. Companies have achieved lower costs while increasing efficiency as the online market requires less human capital than the traditional setting of the business.
Tools and technologies that the organizations use for their virtual communities
Talks on online communities are everywhere lately despite being in existence for over 35 years (DiMauro, 2011). Virtual communities are forged and kept at status quo by individuals living in the material world although many people are in the habit of defining technologies as the saviour of the society. However, the future of the community is forged from our past (Evans, 2003). In the recent years, the online community has seen the focus shift to customer retention, research and other operational functions than ever before.
In years to come, given the growth in virtual communities over the years where they supported sharing of virtual knowledge in professional settings; they have proven their ability to support information exchange and collaboration. Also, the drastic growth of e-business predicts online communities’ future lies in the advent of specialized private online communities, where it exists a high demand for the skilled online community which has come up partly from the growth of social networks such as Twitter and Linked. Open communities are not meeting all the needs of the professionals as with these specialized professional communities the members will interact with fellow peers around specific topics seek clarity on specific topics
For organisations, the future will be challenging despite the market share that a company holds. The ability of customer’s to shares information freely with each other on online platforms ensure that corporations will have a prolific setting to engage with clients on an interactive playing field at all times to enhance customer loyalty.
Conclusion
Internet connectivity has in a large way changed the way individuals interact, get information as well as communicate. Internet usage has led to the development of virtual communities that businesses have targeted as a market for their products and services. For example, Amazon.com has made good of the online community to grow its business and emerge one of the best online markets where customers meet to purchase their favourite book or other electronic products. Revolution in business strategies and models have been realized as e-business deviates from the way traditional business carry their operations. The future of virtual communities lies in the development of specialised private communities where professionals can get specific help from the peers, hence a tailored community where people of a particular profession fits.
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