Top 5 Apps for Tapping into Key Communities in Business

This is a guest post by Steve Nicholls. Steve Nicholls is a leading social media strategist, author and international speaker who advises business executives on how to implement effective social media campaigns into their organizations. He has been featured as a social media expert in CNN, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, BBC, Huffington Post, among others.  His website, Social Media for Business, is a great resource for anyone trying to learn how to leverage social media to aid in their business efforts.

Communities are a great way to find and engage with key individuals in your business such as customers, suppliers or clients, by allowing businesses to tap into pools of individuals at the same time.
In turn, tapping into communities makes it possible for businesses to increase sales, create or increase brand awareness, amplify market visibility, improve customer relationship management, update users on company news and get feedback on products and services, among other business opportunities.
Mobile apps are excellent tools in accessing and engaging with online communities at any one time, from anywhere – enabling businesses to interact not with one, but hundreds, even thousands of key players at the very same time.

Below are 5 mobile applications – each an extension of its respective desktop application – providing access to key online communities for business:

• Facebook: social networks are an excellent way for organizations to connect with others and Facebook is the most popular one today, with more than 1 billion active users at present. Constantly growing, Facebook is an online community that can no longer be ignored today by businesses wishing to connect to others. While it presents many ways through which a business can interact with users, the power of Facebook really lies in the fact that messages have the opportunity to go ‘viral’ at a very fast pace by having people share them with their own networks. Facebook is thus a powerful medium to make a message widely heard and interact with others across geographical boundaries.

• Twitter: Twitter is an example of micro-blog; a blog where only short messages can be published. With more than 500 registered users, Twitter is another social media platform that businesses need to consider if they want to connect to significant online communities. Twitter makes it possible for users to share information instantly by sending and receiving messages in very short format – up to 140 characters. Its expanding user base and power to reach others in real-time through short content makes it the most important micro-blogging site available today.

• WordPress: companies wishing to build communities around their products and services need to consider building a blog to attract as much interest as possible. WordPress is a user-friendly blogging tool with an efficient content management system that allows users to create their own blogs easily, quickly, at no cost and without the knowledge of any programming language. It is, today, one of the most popular blogging tools available online and an essential vehicle for businesses seeking to create their own communities.

• eBay: eBay is an example of marketplaces; sites through which communities of online users engage in e-commerce. E-commerce is the process of buying and selling goods and/or services online, and it represents a very effective way for companies to sell their own products and/or services to large audiences. eBay is a marketplace where both individuals and businesses can sell and buy a range of different goods around the world. According to eBay, the company has a global customer base of 233 million users today, making it a very important community for businesses to connect to.

• Second Life: virtual worlds are often overlooked by businesses, although they present many business opportunities as well. Virtual worlds are online communities that inhabit and interact within an online world. The business value of virtual worlds for your company lies in the fact that they often display and promote real products from existing companies in their virtual environments, making them interesting avenues in which to seek a presence for your brand. Second Life is a virtual world where users can create an avatar and discover their virtual surroundings as well as interact with other players through text and voice chat. Second Life, for instance, encompasses a virtual Apple Store in which avatars can browse the company’s products.

These 5 mobile apps are thus excellent avenues for businesses to connect to online communities and take advantage of the business opportunities they offer.