The popularization of digital resources has transformed the habits of all of us, facilitating access to the most diverse information. Among its many legacies is the opportunity to connect people with common interests.
In this way, it is natural that millions of online users organize themselves into groups. But, after all, what are the benefits of virtual communities for your business? That is what we will explain in today’s post.
What are virtual communities?
Online spaces that bring together users who have common interests, regardless of where they meet, are called virtual communities. The motivations are the most varied: they can be created by fans of an artist, students who are preparing for college entrance exams, etc.
Several communication channels can be used to make this initiative viable. Among the main ones are the maintenance of groups in social media, such as Facebook or WhatsApp, or the creation of forums in the virtual environment.
Although they fulfill the recreational or academic purpose with mastery, the maintenance of the so-called virtual communities is also an interesting strategy to be incorporated into the marketing of a company, for reasons that we will detail below.
Why invest in the creation of virtual communities for your business?
There are many reasons to create virtual communities that are related to your business. The first is that it is an effective way to supply customers and potential customers with information about new releases, updates, or user tutorials, increasing customer-brand engagement.
Streamline customer service
In an age where people have an increasingly busy routine, managers are faced with the need to streamline customer service. With several appointments in a single day, time is a precious commodity for people.
Making them wait for minutes on the phone – which, depending on the context, may seem like hours – is a strategy that, in practice, proves to be inefficient and can even contribute to increasing the level of rejection of the brand.
In this context, by participating in a virtual community, the customer can more quickly find the information he is looking for with the help of search bars.
This is because various documents and tutorials can be published, solving the most frequent doubts. These contents can be updated not only by you but also by the users, who have the opportunity to collaborate with each other.
Furthermore, it is possible to use multimedia resources to enrich the content. In a single video, for example, answers to several different questions can be found. With this, the tendency is for there to be a reduction in costs, simultaneously with an increase in satisfaction rates.
Attract, educate, and influence users
The benefits of virtual communities for your business also include increasing your customer base. This is because, when searching for certain information, many of them end up resorting to a search engine.
In practice, your group can be found more easily when the content production follows the SEO optimization guidelines, allowing you to improve your position on Google pages.
Once the user has been successfully attracted, actions must be planned with the purpose of educating them and reiterating the usefulness of the solutions you offer.
At the same time, maintaining an up-to-date information space, where consumers can find the information they want and interact with other users, can influence the purchase decision.
In other words, an online community, besides visibility, can be a practical demonstration of your commitment to providing the user with a unique experience, a concern that is also important to stop the customers already won.
Make them a thermometer for making adjustments and investments
Finally, it is worth taking advantage of one of the main features of virtual communities: becoming a space for users to share their impressions about the products and services you sell.
Take advantage of this information by tracking the main suggestions or improvement requests, benefiting from the spontaneous feedback to adjust your product to the customer’s expectations and needs. In this way, you will be able to deliver a good that really meets the customer’s expectations and needs.
When developing an improvement project, keep in mind, however, that all requests have to be solved, but on the other hand some of them should not be the parameter for making changes. For this reason, it is important that you have clearly defined objectives.
On the other hand, whenever an improvement is made based on a suggestion from the community, publicize it. As a rule, people feel more valued when they realize that their requests have been met, motivating them to intensify the degree of interaction with the brand.