How To Compete In the Social Networking Arena
Social Networking July 11th, 2007If I hear anything more about Facebook I just might jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. Of course my death may be updated on the Bridge’s Facebook profile, Twitter, and Pownce. Like with any bubble, the social networking craze has it’s phases and is in mid-stage. It started with Friendster, became a teenager with MySpace, and is now a college grad with Facebook. Everyone wants a piece of the action but no one knows if they should make a Facebook app, a networking site, or both and integrate the two. Now that we’ve reached a point in this vertical that’s becoming highly competitive, let’s go back to the tech history books to find out what entrepreneurs did during times likes this. We remember the buzz word ‘long tail’ right? Gross, I know, but what was the whole premise around long tail keyword phrases? That if we focused search marketing efforts on keyword phrases that were less competitive, less searched for, but had high conversion potential, that the aggregate results would lead to profits. Guess what? The same principal applies to social networks. Those who build highly targeted social networks will have the best chance at gaining the most.
Take the wedding networking site TheKnot.com for example. This network is specifically targeted towards couples who are “seeking information and services to help plan their weddings and their future lives together.” On TheKnot.com you can create your profile, invite your friends, post to your blog, etc. According to their site they receive 3.2 million visitors per month and 3,000 new members per day. Another example would be a site like Dogster where you can create a profile for your pooch and connect with other doggies that you think your dog would be friends with. The stats for Dogster? They have 302,974 dog profiles on there. 302,974 DOG profiles!
Since Facebook is the new social networking gorilla in the room, you’ll have to build a niche site in order to get to the bananas. Then you can build a Facebook app and advertise with the new Facebook ad-network Lookery or monetize your app with a text-link ad service from fbExchange.
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