SMT Challenge Day 10
Don’t Miss Smaller Networks That Cater To Your Niche
You know all about the big social networks like Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but what about smaller networks that cater to your niche?
You may not realize it yet but there are other social networks out there with a smaller number of users, such as Ravelry.com for Knitters and Dogster.com for dog lovers.
Many marketers either don’t know about them, or they ignore them because they’re small. But because they’re so niche centric you don’t want to miss these smaller networks that cater to your niche.
Additionally, within larger networks are smaller networks being created. LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com, and Ning.com all allow people to create their own communities inside their larger community.
What’s wonderful about that is that it gives you an opportunity to get in front of your target audience without having to work as hard to find them.
Easier to Stand Out
It’s kind of the difference between undergraduate school and graduate school. In every bachelor’s program, you get a well-rounded education on a lot of different topics, especially the first two years. Then the last two years you get more in-depth on your topic. But in graduate school, you only study your subject and nothing else to become a master.
It might be hard to stand out as a dog lover who creates yummy doggie biscuits on Facebook, but on a smaller community network of dog lovers like Dogster.com, your advertisement is going to be seen by the people who signed up who are obviously dog lovers easier than figuring out targeting on Facebook.
Your Audience is Already Segmented
When you join these subgroups or niche centric social media platforms your audience is already segmented. Everyone there is a fan of what you’re doing already.
All you need to do is follow the terms of service of the platform and let people know about your brand and what you’re doing. Everyone there who sees it will care, unlike on other bigger networks.
Ads Are Usually Cheaper
When you join a micro-community since their audience is smaller they command a lower fee for advertisements. Most of the time. There are some very niche communities that will charge more because they know that their audience is responsive.
For example, if you place an advertisement in the Knitter’s community for supplies, if your price is good you’re likely to get a good response far above average compared to placing it on Facebook where non-knitters will likely see it.
Because of that sometimes they can charge more, but since you get a bigger response it’s still as if it was cheaper since your return on investment will be higher.
Smaller Can Be Better
The fact is, you already know that niching down your offerings to a very focused and targeted audience is the best way to market anything. So, it is just natural that a smaller more focused social media networking platform can be better than a larger unfocused one.
Naturally, it really does depend on your niche, but when you locate smaller but active social networks and subnetworks it’s important to take note and consider taking part in the network so that you can get to know your audience better allowing you to offer better products, services, and content to them.
If you want to find smaller social networking sites Convert with Content has a list of over 60. Perhaps one of these might suit your needs perfectly.
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