Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace dominate the social networking landscape but there are many people looking for a more relevant place to digitally network.
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).
Tags: facebook, linkedin, myspace, social networks
Interesting post because the fact that Facebook in particular has become like Starbucks as you say making specific connections is becoming more difficult.
I think the main issue for me id the quality of some of the smaller social networks they end up being populated by people from the same industry all trying to sell to one another.
For me the interesting thing I am exploring is creating my own social network similar to Bulletin Boards almost where you build a relationship with potential clients and support them helping themselves. This would work very well for ‘brick and mortar’ businesses or consultancies where there is different expertise levels amongst the clients.
Andrew Peel
Andrew,
I can see your point about smaller networks. This can be one of the shortcomings for LinkedIn groups.
Thanks for the comments.
mark
[...] branding and standing out from the crowd. Over the last week we’ve seen posts talk about The Rise of the Vertical Social Network. We’re going to continue to see this trend as we get more people focused on connecting and [...]
[...] In our age of the ever-expanding Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIns of this world, companies, associations, nonprofits, and other types of organizations are also thinking about developing their own communities, to create more relevant and focused places to network: [...]