Facebook. MySpace. Bebo. Orkut. Livejournal. Multiply.
These are all names of well known, heavily-trafficked social network sites. Hundreds of thousands of members and up. I once worked for a startup in Madison ( I believe I may have mentioned this once or twice : ) where Bigger was Better. If we could reach more people, that would be great. If we could build a Bigger community, that would be awesome and we could then sell it for Bigger Money.
In theory, sure. Maybe. But as social networking evolves and the masses settle into patterns, the old marketing thoughts along the lines of more-is-better for a message is not always the way to go, I think.
Consider niche communities.
If you're looking to sell your new gloves to beekeepers, you could certainly market on Facebook. There are zillions of people there, and some small amount of them love to keep bees. Probably. You could spend the money or make the effort to learn how to market there yourself, and draw the Facebook beekeepers into your message and brand with the power of your awesomeness. Or... you could find the niche community MyGenYBeekeeperSpace.com It would be much easier to find many more people interested in your whiz new gloves, in this space; and your marketing pennies or effort would go much further.
I made this community up, by the way. But you get my point.
There are niche communities for triathletes, fisherman, lapsed Catholics, golfers, doctors, and canoe enthusiasts. These communities are -much- smaller than the biggies but the people who sign up there are -much- more into the relevant pastime, occupation, or niche.
When developing a marketing strategy that includes a market you can narrow down ( and yours should; who can really market to "everyone"? ) find the communities that cater to your target niche. Sign up, poke around, have some conversations. Then start doing some really effective messaging to people who care about your bee-proof gloves.
Or, if you're building communities, find an under-represented niche, build it up, and sell it. Or advertising.
Hmmmmmmm. There's an idea.
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