Web 2.0 Mar­ket­ing Tip #21: Go­ing Af­ter Niche Networks

What kind of and which so­cial net­works do you use? If you are one of the reg­u­lar mar­keters, then you are surely us­ing the larger and more pop­u­lar net­works such as Face­book, My­Space, and Twit­ter.

Well, there is noth­ing wrong with start­ing your Web 2.0 mar­ket­ing cam­paigns with these net­works. How­ever, it is wor­thy to con­sider go­ing af­ter smaller, niche-based net­works, too. 

Why Niche Networks?

To­day, there are a lot of niche-based so­cial net­works you can find. For in­stance, there is Ac­tiveRain, a so­cial net­work ex­clu­sively for real es­tate pro­fes­sion­als. There are also net­works fo­cused on in­ter­net mar­ket­ing, avi­a­tion, golf, and vir­tu­ally any topic you can imagine.

Why should you join niche net­works? One of the biggest ben­e­fits you will find is that every­one on these net­works is a po­ten­tial cus­tomer. This is es­pe­cially true if you sell busi­­ness-to-busi­­ness prod­ucts or ser­vices. While you and your fel­low mem­bers are both pro­fes­sion­als, you can rest as­sured that there will be peo­ple there who will need and ap­pre­ci­ate the prod­ucts and ser­vices you provide.

Of course, there are still rules that you have to fol­low, if you want to achieve suc­cess with niche net­works. Some of the most im­por­tant ones are:

• Don’t spam mem­bers with com­mer­cial advertisements
• Strive to of­fer some­thing that is truly valu­able for free, re­gard­less if it is in­for­ma­tion or sam­ple products

Use the above strate­gies at at­tract mem­bers, pro­vide them with valu­able in­for­ma­tion, and when the time is right, you can start sell­ing your prod­ucts to them.