Social Media Marketing For Dummies®

Chapter 7. Marketing via Niche Networks and Online Influencers

In This Chapter

• Knowing the niche platforms that matter

• Handling online community fragmentation

• Letting influencers set the agenda

Throughout this book, I discuss social influence marketing on the major social platforms: what you can do on the paid side of the equation as well as on the unpaid or earned media end. Still, much more social activity is happening online beyond Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, and Twitter that needs to be accounted for. Industry insiders believe that in the coming years, greater fragmentation will happen as user-generated content flows more seamlessly between the major social platforms and the rest of the Internet.

In this chapter, I discuss the social platforms beyond Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, and Twitter. I introduce these other social platforms, help you identify which ones are most appropriate for your marketing needs, and guide you through the process of determining how best to market on them.

Exploring the Niche Social Networks

So what are these niche social platforms that I'm talking about? Table 7-1 outlines the top 20 social networking platforms as of February 2009 from comScore, a marketing research company. Keep in mind that although this categorization uses the term social networks very loosely, it still excludes user-generated content (UGC) video sites such as YouTube and community platforms like Ning (www.ning.com).

Table 7-1. The Top 20 Social Networking Platforms

Social Networking Platform ...