communities as a part of the marketing brainstorming
photo by Du Pierris
So my post about communities in support of… communities got me on a roll after 5 minutes of incubation =) ( just had to feed the cats and put on the dryer so I have a fresh business suit ready for monday morning)..
Anyway while I was brushing my teeth and getting ready to bed I stated thinking about the difference between loving a product and loving a web app.
IS a web app a product ?
YES - and no.
A web app has easier access to it’s community because it was born online. A product is something produced - possibly in a factory or by a crafts(wo)man somewhere. a web app has the web as first priority, because it needs the web to live - a product on the other hand, can exist in a context without the web.
So why do you love a product ? - well why do I love my orange large Luella Bartley bag? - because it’s pretty and fashionable and it makes me feel like the statement I want to make to the world…
Ao why do I love a web app ? either because it’s extremely useful - or it’s pretty, or it’s because of the community using the web app.
BUT would i be a member in a Luella Bartley last.fm group ? or a member of the supportive Luella Bartley googlegroup ? or the Jaiku stream ? no I wouldn’t. would I subscribe to the Luella Bartley supportive group blog ? no.
Somewhere along the line of all these communities in support of the products I would feel like I am being marketed to. In a viral overhyped way.
Am I being marketed a viral buzz - that is a result af a marketing brainstorm about what communities and web apps the buzz could use to become bigger and reach more people ?
possibly…
is the future going to include more of these supportive communities on behalf of products/web apps - yep .
will it make the communities less pure, and the participants more cautious ? yep.
so are communities as a marketing tool ( and not as a community) a part of the future ? Im afraid so.
March 12th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
I love shovels. My I’ve little connection to the person, or the culture, that gave rise to the shovel.
But with web apps. especially now in their nascent stages, the connection to real people — the web app crafters — is palpable.
When I use Jaiku, in other words, it’s more like interacting with the art of Jyri and Petteri and their crew than it is driving a Volkswagen.
March 12th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
So should companies that produce a product ignore the communities that develop around their product or should they become involved? I’m thinking about something like TiVO, which has an active online community which does look for the brand to be there and answer questions.
March 12th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Hi Peter - true - but isn’t that because we’re all geeks and we can connect to it in these ways ? if you didn’t have any connection to Jyri and Petteri would driving a voikswagen be like art to you as well ?
@Rachel , they should definely get involved - the interesting question for me is if a community is going to still be looked at as a community, or it’s going to be a part of a bigger marketing plan to get “involved”. when you say that TiVO has an active online community is it in one place or all over the place ?
March 14th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
The TiVo communities are in a couple of places, depending on country as you have different products. The company have played a part their. There;s a lot of other stuff out there, but the majority of activity is concentrated.
They fall on a spectrum…Huggies has a pretty thriving board on it’s site; Sunsilk is developing one on MySpace (these are both brands I’m involved in). They have made a positive effort to provide tools and places. Other companies I’ve seen don’t get involved at all..if they even know the conversation is there. As with everything with marketing there’s no one answer. A brand needs to look at input (hands on or off), location (their site or other places), stance/style, (official/unoffocial/personal), legality (drugs, finance etc are very difficult), internal culture (open/closed), resources (internal/agency/spokespeople) and probably a few other things before they decide whether to get involved in the conversation.