In fact, social networks in general have been bad at bringing together people with a shared interest to create new communities. Whereas forums have always been particularly good at it. Look at Mumsnet, The Student Room and Gamespot for some incredibly successful examples of forums used to build powerful, long-lasting communities.

Now is the time to revisit what I believe is the greatest use of the internet: online community sites and their evolution into niche social networks.

The resurrection of the niche community

Despite the attention the big social networks have been receiving in recent years, community forums have remained popular and they’re evolving, adopting more ‘social network’ like features. There are hundreds of thousands, probably millions of these sites that have a combined audience comparable to Facebook.

Perhaps online communities have been overlooked slightly in recent years because they are so niche. You would only visit these forums if you had a particularly strong interest, and it’s this extreme and shared interest that unites people within them.

A fantastic example is the Transformer toys collector websites like TFormers and Seibertron. Why would you know about these if you weren’t interested in Transformers? You wouldn’t. These sites are insanely popular and extremely resilient because of their community bond. For every interest there is an online community to accommodate, be it for films, fishing, cooking and so on. They live and grow every day even if you know nothing about them.

I run a small local site called Love Clapham that brings together my local community online. During 2011’s London riots, where Clapham Junction became centre of attention, Love Clapham’s community played a pivotal role as residents confirmed to one another what was and wasn’t actually happening. Almost all local communities now have an online community site to accommodate. They’re incredibly powerful within each area. Search for the one in your area to see for yourself.

Long-term relationships

Back in the late 90′s early 00′s I ran a number of sites for pop artists and TV shows which were particularly good at bringing people together to chat about common interests. Building friendships and even marriages(!) that last to this day. I’m followed on Twitter and still chat online with many people I met on these forums but have never actually met – over a decade later. I’ve always been fascinated by this use of online and the untouchable strength of community.

Will community behaviour ever follow the technology?

Social networks are a natural progression from forums – forums 2.0! After all, much of the functionality is similar, only much better (posting images, messaging, discussions etc). Yet the community behaviour never followed the technology. So I recently discovered a games social network called Playfire with great interest.

Playfire is a new, currently limited but quickly developing social network that brings video game players together, cleverly linking to games consoles to display your game play activity from the Xbox 360 and PS3. As a video gamer this is exciting and I’ve already been using it in similar ways to how I would use a forum (e.g. asking the collective community questions). The big games websites Gamespot and IGN both have communities built around forums that have existed for over ten years and they’re both integrating more and more social network like features too.

Zeebox, a new iPad app and website built as a companion to broadcast TV demonstrates similar characteristics by bringing people together who like shows in real time to chat about them. This uses Twitter to form the community interaction. Twitter is particularly interesting because it can mould itself around other technology in ways Facebook cannot. I’m keen to see how this grows but also how existing communities like Mumsnet evolve from what we know as forums into more advanced social networks (aka forums 2.0, or as I like to call them, mega forums… joke).

Niche social networks are the next big thing

I was discussing this very subject of niche social networks and the dominance of Facebook with my colleague Guy Phillipson earlier in the year. We came to the conclusion that niche social networks will begin to have their heyday and, from the little evidence I’ve just written about, this appears to be happening right now.

Thanks to the wider availability of simple social network technology, niche social networks are cropping up every day. Open source platforms like JomSocial for Joomla and BuddyPres for WordPress mean almost every interest has its own niche social network. Take a look at Tasty Kitchen, Fellow Fishermen, New York City Runners and this fantastic Greek pet social network. Currently Google+ even feels like a niche social network for early adopting media/technology experts – I love it! It won’t stay like that forever of course.

In fact, if you look, some niche social networks have existed for a long time and other communities are playing catch-up. Dating sites like Match, MySingleFriend, Gaydar and PlentyofFish are a prime example of niche social network; in fact they were probably the first niche social network. Often they offer more than just a match making service, they build friendships around a common situation and generate wider discussion among the people that use them. And yes, they create new relationships.

This post is more about sharing some thoughts to generate discussion instead of drawing a conclusion. I will however finish on the thought that some social networks, predominantly Facebook, have distracted from something the internet is particularly good at: bringing people together online to form community. A lot of these communities already exist as forums which I’d argue are a form of social network in their own right and these are morphing into something more advanced and ‘social network’ like.

Let’s not simply focus on the scale of large social networks, as important as this scale and their influence is. Let’s also concentrate on the bond of community and the way in which the internet can create and strengthen this.

Last June, my fiancé discovered Pinterest: a new social networking site where you pin images of things you like for others to see.  It’s a sharing site for clothes, quotes, pictures, cooking, decoration, weddings, etc.  By the end of that week, her sister and mom were both on Pinterest.  Soon after, my mom followed.  Six months later, in December 2011, the total unique visits hit 11 million.  It grew 4000% in just 6 months.  If you haven’t heard of it, ask any girl you know.  Chances are, she’s heard of it!

Why? Well, Pinterest, whether intentional or not, has content that caters to a niche: women.  The content on the site is dominated by images featuring home décor, crafts, fashion, and food.  Although there are no limitations on what you can upload, because the site is dominated by a certain theme of content, it attracts a certain demographic.  According to the marketing intelligence firm: Hitwise, visitors to the site in the 12 rolling weeks ending December 17th skewed female (58%) and between the ages of 25 and 44 (59%).  The concept is simple.  Like Facebook, Twitter, or Digg, you upload/share something you like, and other people can ‘re-pin’ it and/or comment on it.  So why did Pinterest break through to the mainstream?  If the capabilities are not much more than Facebook, Twitter, and thousands of other competitors, how did Pinterest make it into the 10 most visited social networks?  The answer is simple: the content targeted a niche.

Niche content breeds an environment of exclusivity, privacy, and a sense of community.  Supported by the ‘Social Identity Theory‘ in sociology, and the popular marketing strategies of ‘exclusivity’ and ‘scarcity’, Pinterest, intentionally or unintentionally, appeals to the niche market of women.  Derived desirability from the niche market and the power of word-of-mouth marketing makes Pinterest a haven for women to share.  Women tell their friends of Pinterest, their friends visit Pinterest, see something they like, become users, then spread the word to their friends.  Pinterest has become a community housing the interests of women.  And looking forward, when Pinterest inevitably initiates an advertisement-based business model, the refined majority demographic will attract exclusive advertisers targeting women.

As the market for social networks begins to get saturated, niche networks like Pinterest will begin to prevail.  Social networks adding value to a niche are perfect candidates for word-of-mouth marketing.  Supported by Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: with a high ‘stickiness factor’ and context within the demographic, a few powerful connectors and salesmen can turn the social network into a social epidemic. Complimented with advertisers seeking niche marketing, these networks will have a sustaining revenue base.  Pinterest is one of the first niche social network successes, and as the market matures, and the demand for niche social networks rises, it will be considered a pioneer in its industry.

(Source: http://www.tilakjoshi.com )

Facebook, for example, is the “Starbucks” of social networking but there are lots of consumers happily patronizing smaller chains or independents because they meet their needs differently or better.

As John Jantsch wrote in a recent blog post, many people are looking to connect with people within social networks that cater to specific professions (e.g. real estate, law) or interests (e.g. baseball, karaoke).

These networks don’t get a lot of attention but they do exist, and maybe now is the time for them to gain more traction as Facebook and LinkedIn become exceedingly mainstream.

In other words, if everyone’s partying at the same place, there may be opportunities for other places to establish themselves as the new, cool place.

The biggest challenge facing these niche or vertical network is selling people on the idea that size doesn’t matter. These networks are more about the quality of connections rather than quantity. They are places where like-minded individuals can connect with each other with far less noise.

Just for fun, here are some of the more odd vertical social networks – StachePassions (moustaches), Vampire Freaks (vampires) and Zii Trend (clairvoyants).

(Source: http://blog.sysomos.com)

altwater fly-fishing pro Tony Biski recently came home with a story so good he couldn’t wait to share it. “It was a 12-foot great white shark viciously thrashing his tail and spraying us as he ran off with the fish,” wrote Biski, a resident of Chatham, Mass., in a post that grabbed the attention of dozens of other anglers on the Web. One commenter wanted to know if Biski had time to snap a photo. Another quipped: “Just in time for the 35th anniversary of Jaws.”

Biski didn’t bother posting his fish tale on Facebook, the 500 million-user site that’s the world’s biggest social network. Instead, he shared his story on GoFISHn, a community of a few thousand anglers. The site features maps that pinpoint where fish are biting, a photo gallery where members can show off their catches, and other quirks that distinguish it from a mass audience site. “We feel like we’re a moon orbiting Facebook,” says Ned Desmond, a former digital publishing executive at Time Inc. (TWX) who launched GoFISHn in December 2009. Desmond plans to create GoHUNTn and up to eight other interest-specific networks in coming years.

Facebook’s six-year rise from exclusive online hub for Ivy Leaguers to global digital directory has inspired a countertrend: niche social sites. Name an affinity, hobby, occupation, or demographic—mustache-wearing men, hamster lovers, moms, research scientists, boomers—and there’s likely to be a dedicated social network for it. While most niche networks are run by fledgling tech startups and are, almost by definition, small, they add up to a sizable portion of the social Web; in July at least 280 million people logged on to social sites other than Facebook and Twitter, according to audience tracker comScore (SCOR). Andrew Lipsman, comScore director of industry analysis, estimates the real number could be as high as 700 million, since many people use more than one social site.

Apple (AAPL) dove into interest-specific social media this month with the launch of Ping, a service for connecting music fans and artists. Unlike Ping, which has a ready-made feeder community of tens of millions of iTunes customers (and which surpassed 1 million users in just 48 hours), most niche network operators have to do more with less, building features into their sites to secure loyalty and interaction from users. There’s a payoff: They can charge higher ad rates. “The only way for a network to survive in a small community is to have a very high revenue per user,” says Jeff Clavier, a Silicon Valley angel investor who has backed canine site Dogster and video-gamer community Curse.

The exemplar of niche network success is myYearbook, founded in 2005 by siblings David and Catherine Cook. The site pulls in 25 million users, mostly teenagers, via dozens of games such as Blind Date, in which players attempt to match up compatible peers. “Our assumption is essentially everyone will have a Facebook account and use it to connect to friends and family,” says Geoff Cook, who joined his brother and sister soon after they founded the New Hope (Pa.) company, becoming chief executive officer. “Our users are here to meet new people.”

Viacom’s (VIA) MTV, Six Flags, and other advertisers provide the bulk of myYearbook’s revenue, which its CEO says has grown to about $2 million per month, up from about $1.2 million a year ago. One-third of sales now come from Lunch Money, a virtual currency purchased with real cash. Taking a page from Facebook’s playbook, the company plans to partner with up to a dozen game makers to expand the selection of activities on the site. Cook expects myYearbook to post its first annual profit in 2010.

While myYearbook focuses on teens, Eons attracts empty nesters with newfound time on their hands. Created by Monster.com (MWW) founder Jeffrey C. Taylor in 2005, Eons caters to the 50-plus crowd with discussion groups about retirement, spirituality, and the single life as a mature adult. “Facebook is really a place where you go, and it’s all about who you know—it’s me-centric,” says Linda G. Natansohn, chief operating officer at the Charlestown (Mass.) startup. “Eons is we-centric.” For example, some of the site’s 825,000 members meet up for boat cruises to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and excursions to Cape Cod. The outings are called SKITs, which stands for “spending your kids’ inheritance tours.” “Eons was created and continues to exist for the very targeted audience that we’re looking for,” says Tom Noland, a spokesman for Medicare coverage provider Humana (HUM), an advertiser on the site.

According to researcher eMarketer, the cost of a banner ad averages 62 cents per thousand page views across the universe of social networking sites. Advertisers on 700,000-user site Dogster sometimes pay upwards of $8, says Ted Rheingold, founder and CEO of the San Francisco company. A recent game for puppy lovers had users digitally hunting down and killing fleas—a promotion for Frontline’s flea collars. “Their brand is present as part of the whole dog owner experience, not just as a small ad to the right of the page,” says Rheingold, alluding to Facebook’s ad format.

None of these sites is a threat to Facebook. Rather, most depend on the larger site to get users learning the ABCs of networking online; the niche networks are the advanced course. “Two years ago everybody was talking about Facebook sucking all the oxygen out of the room,” says Rick Lewis, principal at U.S. Venture Partners and a member of myYearbook’s board. “There is potential that didn’t exist two years ago.”

Niche sites can help consumers get away from the noise of the mainstream while helping marketers in the endless quest for perfectly honed targets. “Need to find pilots who have experience in the Cessna 337 Skymaster that happen to live in California?” asks Rod Rakic, founder of aviation social network myTransponder. “We can do that.”

The bottom line: Facebook’s ascendancy has opened the way for an assortment of more focused social networks. That’s good news for marketers.

(Originally posted on  the businessweek )

According to eMarketer, during 2008 advertisers spent $920M on advertising within social networks. Of that $920M, eMarketer says 8.2 percent went to niche social networks. In 2009, this year it is estimated that spending will increase to $2.1 billion, and the take for smaller networks will rise to 10%.

To me this trend towards niche social networks mirrors the explosion in niche magazines that we saw the last 20-30 years. You can buy magazines on almost any type of topic today and the reason you can is that advertisers like to be able to reach very unique targeted market segments.

My thought is that if you wanted to sell a $250,000 Rolex watch instead of advertising on a general Facebook page, it would probably be better to advertise on a social networking site like ASmallWorld. ASmallWorld is a niche social network with a membership of around 300,000 wealthy individuals.

Here’s some examples of niche social networks.

85 Broads – Career women who attended a select list of leading universities
ArtBreak – artist community for sharing and selling artwork.
ASmallWorld – By invitation only, for celebrities and the business elite
BeGreen – a community that aims to generate environmental awareness for users.
beRecruited – a dedicated online community for sportpersons and coaches.
Blackplanet – connections between African Americans
BottleTalk – a wine lover’s community
Blogtronix – promotes corporate social networking, enterprise 2.0 and wikis.
CafeMom – networking site for mothers
CarGurus – An automobile community website
Change – a nonprofit social networking website
ChangingThePresent – A nonprofit fund raising community
CompanyLoop – An online co-working community for global businesses.
Decorati – An interior designer community enabling users to post items for sale and for exchange.
Dogster For dog lovers everywhere
DoMyStuff – for working professionals looking to find online assistants.
Doostang – An invite only career community for professionals.
Fast Pitch – for entrepreneurs who want to market their business.
Gaia For the socially conscious crowd
GLEE.com For the gay and lesbian community
iKarma Inc. – providing customer feedback for organizations and professionals.
ImageKind – for professional artists.
Jambo – connect with your neighborhood friends.
Lawyrs – A professional social networking community for lawyers.
mediabistro.com – for professionals in content or creative industry.
MilitaryPlanet – For members of the military
MyCatSpace – for lovers of cats
MyDogSpace – for lovers of dogs
New England Venture Network— Social networking for venture capitalists
Pairup.com – connects business travelers assisting them to travel together.
Shelfari – A site for book lovers and authors
ShoutLife – A Christian social network
Uniteddogs – Another side for dog owners.
Ultrafan For sports fans
vSocial – a video based social networking platform

This is just a sample. The environment is like the Wild West where these networks are popping up everywhere. Some will stick, others will fail. The ones that stick could eventually be winners in grabbing future niche advertising dollars. As I mentioned above, if I was a niche magazine publisher today, I would be building and promoting a social networking platform for the readers of my magazine.

(Originally posted on the  horizonwatching.typepad

For years I’ve been singing the praises of niche outreach and waiting to see niche social networking overtake general social networks (like Facebook) with the public. I’m sad to say it hasn’t happened as quickly as I would have liked. Too many people are still wasting too much time trying to be everything to everyone.

That said, niche social networking is here, and it’s been around much longer than some of you probably realize. Let’s explore niche social networking, what might be holding it back, and where things are going well for niche social networks.

Bigger Isn’t Always Better: The Benefit of Niche Targeting

The niche is where it’s at. That’s where you’ll find the people who care about the same things you care about, who share your hobbies or interests or industries, and who are looking for exactly what you’re offering. Are you reaching your niche? Or are you so preoccupied with numbers that you sometimes forget about relevancy?

That reminds me of my music PR days. Myspace was moving from a music-focused network to more of a general social network. Clients and other artists in my [real world] network thought this was great. More general users = more fans, right? Well, maybe on “paper.”

There were bands with 50k+ followers on the network. They thought they rocked. They didn’t. Bursting bands’ bubbles became a regular occurrence. I’d always come at them with a “Yeah? And how’s that working out for you?” When they’d inevitably ask what I meant I’d get more specific:

• How many album sales has it gotten you?
• How many sales on iTunes?
• How many more people are going to your shows?
• How many labels have contacted you (for those caring about such things)?

Other than a few who really got social media, built fan bases with a lot of direct outreach and interaction, and who did indeed get more attention or make more sales or end up with labels, the answer was usually “nada.”

Why? It all came down to who those followers actually were and how the band got them. Those large follower counts usually came from things like:

• Following a lot of people manually, knowing people would often follow-back without really looking at your profile;
• Using automatic bots to friend people for the same reason mentioned above (only quicker);
• Other bands (not ones they’d actually played with or known, but just ones who wanted another set of eyes to see their show announcements — it seemed to be even more commonplace for bands to follow-back out of sheer courtesy than fans);
• Spammers (the fake accounts who follow them just to try to get a follow-back to inflate their friend count).

The point is that it didn’t matter how many followers a band had. Those followers weren’t helping them reach any of the goals they were supposedly striving for. And really, then what’s the point?

A smaller, more targeted niche audience is the better way to go. You’ll never have the time to put in honest effort getting to know 50k random followers or virtual friends. You might be able to connect with 1000 or 5000, with that group being real fans or friends or whatever you want to call them. Those are people who want to hear from you, who care about your news, who want to find some kind of connection. Those are also the people most likely to come out to a show (or book signing or conference you’re presenting at) and the most likely to buy what you’re selling.

Of course it’s not always about sales, but you have some kind of goal. At least you should. Is your audience helping you reach them? If you haven’t moved into niche social networking yet, they might not be.

Niche Social Networking: Progressing or Losing Steam?

Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

I mentioned before that niche social networking is nothing new. Forums, message boards, email groups — these are all forms of social networking, even if they don’t always take the format we’re used to calling “social networks” today. I can’t help but wonder if these existing communities have actually held back the progress of niche social networking.

I’m not saying they have. It’s just something that crosses my mind occasionally. After all, they’re not bright and shiny and new anymore, so they often aren’t talked about as often as the big general social networks. Sometimes I wonder if more people wouldn’t be involved in niche networks and if we wouldn’t see many more niche networks pop up on the Web if people were talking about it more. Then again maybe that’s just because I’m not a fan of Facebook, can’t stand seeing them dominate so much of the discussion, and can’t wait to see them fade from glory (which I think is inevitable).

As little as I like general social networks, I do have to admit they have a roll to play in niche social networking. It is still possible to find a niche audience using Facebook or Myspace, or whatever network you prefer, even if they do invite more spammers and bots due to their sheer size. Is there a possibility that these mega networks are also holding back growth in niche social networking? Have we gotten to a point where it just doesn’t make much sense to try to compete with those numbers, as artificial as they can sometimes be? I really don’t know. But it’s something else to consider.

Then we have issues like the recent business model change at Ning. Ning’s services (including their free one) enabled people to create niche social networks on just about any topic. It didn’t matter if the niche was profitable to the founder (so cost and return weren’t an issue before deciding to start one). With that changing, and social networks there closing, I see another potential strike against the niche social network.

Don’t get me wrong. There are other ways to start free social networks. There are ways to start inexpensive ones too (just the cost of a domain and hosting if you use WordPress and the BuddyPress plugin for example). But for a well-known site to cut off those social networks that aren’t necessarily in profitable enough niches to make paid services worthwhile, well, is that a sign of a larger changing attitude towards the “little guy?” I’m not saying any company should feel like they have to provide something for free. I’m just saying that if they choose to, and then they change their mind with little regard for the people involved in communities built on their service, that’s a trend I hope I don’t have to see continue.

Niche Social Networks Done Right

It wouldn’t really be fair for me to talk about the potential issues facing niche social networking if I didn’t also talk about some of the niche social networks that have done rather well.

I don’t know all of their exact member numbers, nor is that really relevant (you can’t compare A to B if they don’t measure “active members” in the same way). But here are a few of my favorite large niche social networks.

• LinkedIn — I doubt any reader of Social Implications hasn’t heard of LinkedIn. I love the professional atmosphere in comparison to other social networks, and that’s why general networks probably won’t ever lure me to them for business networking. It’s where colleagues and clients are, and where they go to talk shop.
• Ancestry.com— I’m a big genealogy buff. Ancestry.com might be thought of as more of a research site for some, but it’s actually a full-fledged social network. You can be connected to distant relatives, see the updates those in your network make to their family trees (to see if info was added that’s relevant to your own), and contact them with questions or to offer information. You can share videos, and photos, and scans of historical documents. If I were going to waste a day on any one network, it would be this one (despite the fact that their customer service has always been quite lacking – the network itself overcomes that to a degree).
  Ancestry.com’s Member Connect Stream

• Classmates.com – I don’t spend much time on Classmates.com, but I still find it to be one of the more interesting niche networks out there right now. Social networking has often been about keeping students in touch and reconnecting people with old classmates. But of all of them, I think Classmates.com does the best job. That’s because they seem to have more structure than most. They get members to include very specific types of information — high school photos versus current ones for example. That makes the site both a platform to reconnect, but also a nice little stroll down memory lane.

There are plenty of successful niche social networks out there right now. What are some of your favorites? What are they doing right? What could startup niche social networks learn from them?

(Originally posted on the socialimplications)

Especially when asked to make quick decisions.

Successful products have been driven by the combination of:

1. The “right” feature set
2. Clarity in purpose
3. And most importantly, the vibrant nature of communities and how accessible they are to the user.

Indeed, social media users have gone from having options limited by the technical feasibility of what they are trying to accomplish, to being left with a barrage of decisions to make about what, how, and with who they socialize their content.

They’re running into too many choices of types and places to share their content.  

And, increasingly, they’re also running into one parameter that’s impossible to change – the number of hours in the day.

We Are Leaving The Shopping Malls

So, what’s starting to happen? People, especially early adopters and power users, are taking time away from the “shopping mall” social networks — Facebook and Twitter, for purposes of this discussion — where people can conceivably get anything they want, but have to do a lot of filtering and sorting and following and set up.

Instead, they are starting to turn towards specialized niche social networks to get one type of content that may be most properly appealing to them.

Compare to a real-world scenario: let’s say if you’re a marathon runner, and are looking for a new pair of shoes. You may be fine going to Target, because they sell sneakers, but their selection probably isn’t aimed at you.  You could try a Foot Locker, and you may have better luck, but you may be out of luck if you have flat feet, or a high arch, or need width.

At the end of the day, many people go to a store where they have people who can share their expertise with running and know how to fit you best for shoes. Now if you knew that ahead of time, wouldn’t you go to the specialty store first?

To me?

The Target for your content is Facebook, the Foot Locker is Twitter, and the specialty stores? I’d wager them as Pinterest, Instagram, Foursquare and Tumblr.

The Big Problems With Shopping Malls

I think that Facebook’s problem has become trying to be too many things to too many people and Twitter has always struggled with people who are new to the service understanding the ecosystem.

As Twitter and Facebook start to move their ad products public, it is in their best interest to have users share as much content as possible because it allows them the space to insert ads into the content stream. And this is the last holy grail of social advertising, and why these niche networks will continue to succeed – it’s an area the “shopping malls” don’t want to play in anymore.

In a quantity vs quality comparison, on a per piece of content basis, quantity almost never wins.

Why are these niche networks appealing?

I think it’s because the decision set has been limited, the options to act have been filtered, the context and actions are clear, the complexity has been largely removed, and the onus is on creativity and curation.

(I’d be lying if anyone ever said to me, “man, you have an amazing Facebook page”).

Here are five reasons why I think niche networks are starting to win some users away:

1. There are limited explicit options about what and how to share.  

On Instagram, you’re sharing photographs with a quick way to customize.  With Foursquare, you’re telling people where you are and who you’re with.  With Pinterest, you’re telling people what you want.  With Tumblr, you’re giving a very limited set of options to share your content, and encourage to keep it short and to the point.   It’s a classic web design tenet – don’t make the user think too much, and they will be more likely to do something.

2. The action is both spontaneous and lasting.

At point of creation or curation, the user decision set is limited, often reactionary, doesn’t take a lot of effort and all take care to make your content broadcast able to the audience that you want, and store it for easier review and curation.

3.  Each action builds towards a collection of content that you can control and edit at any time.  

Facebook is certainly trying to do this with Timeline, but the daunting task of reviewing and curating content prior to the middle of 2011 is too much for many long time users who don’t want the stress of trying to figure out who the audience is.

There is emotional and archival value in your Pinboards, or your Tumblr blog or your Instagram stream. Your Foursquare check-in history reminds you of where you where and what you did both on a global scale, and every time you check-in.

If you choose to go further, all of these services have a secondary system for organizing your content via tags (Tumblr, Instagram), or through groupings (boards and tips and lists), but you are under no obligation to use them.  You’re building your own unique canvas – you’re creating something to last.  

4.  Your collection is much likely to be about one thing, or related sets of things.

I’ve seen Pinterest boards about everything from shoes, to fashion, to best football teams, to memes, Tumblrs about everything from Kim Jung Il, to one featuring the same picture of Full House star Dave Coulier.

Foursquare reminds you that you’re really into movie theaters, Apple stores, pizza joints or karaoke bars by awarding you leveled badges based on your activity there.  Instagram photo streams capture the eye of the photographer and often revolve around the things they like to shoot.

5. There is a built-in community online around content discovery.

If you’re new to these communities, there are a host of people who can show you the way to best utilize these tools, either implicitly or explicitly, and thus make it easier to discover people with like interests.

Discovery tools allow the random serendipity that makes social media great to connect people across shared content interests.

—-

The explosive growth of Pinterest, Instagram, Foursquare and Tumblr are no longer something marketers can ignore.  And remember, user choice always wins; for every Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, there is a Friendster, Pownce and Gowalla.

So what’s a marketer to do with these new channels?

(Originally posted on the Social Fresh blog)

Social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter are pioneering the way for specialized social networking sites, or niche sites, that create communities around specific interests. LinkedIn, for instance, is a social networking site geared towards working professionals who want to network for business purposes. While joining a catch-all social networking community like Facebook is a great way to make business-related contacts, smaller networks that interact more at the local level seem to be the wave of the social media future.

Many niche social networks have arrived on the networking scene like bright shining stars, popular for a while, but soon disappear into oblivion. The plethora of sites drives out the weaker competition. There are hundreds of bookworm-related niche networking sites that have popped up recently, only to be crushed by the competition or swiped up by larger companies. Still, even the small networking sites that do not get as much publicity could be beneficial. If you have a specific interest that not too many of your peers share, networking online can put more like-minded individuals in touch.

For busy professionals, hopping on board a social media networking site can seem like a chore, but networking through social media can make big payoffs with relatively little work. Oftentimes, professionals already have a resume, cover letter, profile page, website, and other online material that they can upload to the new site. Then, re-establish old contacts, establish new contacts, join online forum discussions, and self-promote while learning about others who have similar goals and interests. Plus, online networking has the added benefit of keeping you on the edge of your game. Talking with others in your professional field about topics that interest you will keep you in the know about the latest trends. Even if you are an avid follower of your industry’s latest trends, you would be surprised to find out what you can learn through a conversation with a likeminded professional in a social networking site.

Source: http://www.scmp.org