Social media Vs Niche Social Media

Social media marketing is an increasingly popular form of internet marketing used by bloggers throughout the world. The most popular social media sites have millions of members and leverage over a million visits a day through there online activities.

Stumbleupon now has over 6,405,471 stumblers and this increases day by day

This is just one example of how popular social media websites can be. Digg another similarly popular social media site pulls in over 30 million unique views a month and has an increasingly large membership base which keeps there website updated with the latest news and entertainment. There are several big “dogs” of the social media market however where is social media marketing going to move next?

With the rise of social media sites such as Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit and Del.icio.us bloggers have been quick to take advantage of the increased traffic capabilities that having your site stumbled or dugg hundreds if not thousands of times can have on your website. A very well known fact about Digg is that if you are lucky enough to be dugg on to the front page it is likely that your server will crash due to high amounts of traffic being sent to your website.

So, where is social media marketing going to go next?

So now we know how big social media marketing actually is the question I am going to try and answer or predict is where social media marketing is going to go next. Some may say that the majority of bloggers will be loyal to the main social media sites and dream that one day they will be able to hit the front page of Digg or Del.icio.us however others may say that with the increased popularity of these mainstream social media sites will come increased competition which will in turn make it harder for bloggers to be noticed. Now obviously the main aim of social media sites is to increase popularity and traffic this is the same with any type of website have it be a blog, an auction site, an entertainment site or a health care website the idea is to increase traffic which will enable the site to grow however growth does not have the same effect on any other site as it does with social media websites.

The two ways to look at growth in social media sites

These are both from a site owners point of view the first being;

With increased growth and popularity > comes increased traffic and attention from other potential readers > leading to an increased subscriber base or membership base > increasing the growth of your blog.

This is the positive outlook of increased popularity towards social media sites however it can work both as an advantage and a disadvantage.

The disadvantage of growth in social media sites is that;

With increased popularity comes > increased competitors > weakening the amount of attention your website receives > effecting the amount of traffic your site receives > leading to a slower growth of your own blog.

These are two just very simple processes which have been taking place since the birth of social media sites and with rapid growth in the past several years due to an increased amount of bloggers it increases.

However due to the increased competition with in social media sites, lack of focus and untargeted market areas that many of these large social media sites have there is going to be a new wave of social media sites “Niche social media sites”.

The new wave: “Niche social media sites”

My prediction is that these niche social media sites are going to start appearing all over the internet very soon in many different areas such as internet marketing, health and fitness and finance. These niche social media sites will help to increase coverage for smaller less developed sites which were finding it hard to get noticed on the large social media sites such as Digg and Stumbleupon. They will act as a window of oppurtunities to be able to leverage more targetted traffic to your website and convert this traffic in to subscribers, members or customers.

One of the main complaints I hear about social media marketing and one of the biggest flaws is because these social media sites are so large and unfocused the traffic you receive from them is generally untargeted and because of this the traffic does not convert very well. However with the new wave of social media sites this problem will be erradicated and instead you will have highly targetted traffic which should convert well.

Obviously like with any type of site the niche social media sites have their advantages and disadvantages some of these being:

Niche social media site advantages

1. Highly targeted traffic which should convert well.
2. Less competition and a much tighter community.
3. More coverage and increased chances of success.
4. Harder to exploit the site’s system. Staff are able to watch people closer.

Niche social media site disadvantages

1. The major disadvantage would be that your likely to receive less traffic.
2. Dominant sites in that area may take the spotlight.

However I feel that the positives far out weight the negatives and that these niche social media sites can only bring success to the blogs that become active in these areas.

Where has my prediction come from?

Now this is a prediction I have had for the past several months since the appearance of niche social media site Sphinn.

Sphinn is one of the first new wave social media sites to be developed and it focuses on the field of internet marketing. When this was first developed I had already thought about a more focused social media website being an action that needs to be taken and this was the answer. Sphinn has now been up and running for several months now and has been growing from what I can see to be a steady pace. Although the traffic there is not brilliant unless you are “Sphunn” on to the front page it is highely targeted and with targeted traffic comes higher chances of the traffic converting. You can read my Sphinn introduction and beginners guide here.

Another new wave social media site that has also hit the internet is Tip’d a social bookmarking site which focuses upon the financial niche. The site has only been around for the last month and already has 3,000 page views a day and over 1,800 members.

I believe this is just the start of the new wave of niche social media sites which will be hitting the internet in the next 6 months. As you can see by my two previous examples these sites are in demand and they have a large amount of potential.

Will niche social media marketing be the next big thing or will the large social media sites still be the dominant sites of the social media industry, what do you think?

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