15 Aug

How Community Support the Development of StartUp Companies

by Veritrans Indonesia

2564Views

Hello again everyone! Our beloved country’s independence day is in the corner, so let’s hope that our country will be better in the future. Anyway, today’s post is a summary of an interesting article about start up company that I came across this morning.

As the total number of internet users in Indonesia is growing, recently the IT practitioners are not only coming from corporate and their business players, but also supported by the community whom existence cannot be neglected anymore. Community often represents market demands, which in fact brings special attraction for several world well known IT companies to incorporate with them for the sake of launching of their companies in Indonesia.

In horizontal education concept, consumers themselves will later decide to use a product that is recommended by their friends, colleagues and families that they trust, not by companies that promise them about the products. Therefore, for the sake of company existence, interaction between company and consumer must be made horizontally. However, how this concept should be applied in Indonesia?

Let say several well-known companies like Nokia, Blackberry and Baidu, they are known to use horizontal marketing concept, in which the intensity of interaction with community is always increased for the sake of knowing the interest of market. For example, Blackberry Jam Camp event which is aimed at showing their ability to international world. Another example is the one that is organized by Nokia like DVLUP Porting Day which embrace their developer community to thrill IT community world.

A series of such event is used for education media and information exchange between consumers. The company itself only become a connector between the consumers in order to facilitate their positive activities. Afterwards, the community will voluntarily spread information about various products to their nearest people.

Different from Nokia and Blackberry, Baidu as a technology based company in China also build community in between their products users by organizing positive and useful activities. For example, Baidu powerUP event which is design to be a technology party, with aim to introduce new technology in community, so that these technologies can become a solution for their daily life. Furthermore, several thematic event like Nobar in the Sky which held on the same date as World Cup 2014, is also organized, also Miss Soccer which is looking for a young female figure representing the spirit of young Baidu capturing the market.

By doing those event, companies definitely not only increase brand awareness, but also expand their personal engagement with the community. As a result, their business develop significantly in market. Instead of promotion using mass media which is an expensive way to build brand awareness in community, building brand awareness through community can increase consumer loyalty. This move is really good considering that Indonesia has large amount of human resources, especially for startup which can utilize community as media for public relation.