Social Media Marketing For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 15

Marketing via Niche Networks and Online Communities

In This Chapter

Knowing the niche platforms that matter

Discovering where customers spend their time online

Understanding unpaid media basics

Throughout this book, we discuss social media marketing on the major social platforms: what you can do on the paid side of the equation as well as on the unpaid or earned media end. Still, much more social activity is happening online beyond Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and you need to account for it. Industry insiders believe that in the coming years, greater cohesion will happen as user-generated content flows more seamlessly between the major social platforms and the rest of the Internet.

In this chapter, we discuss the social platforms beyond Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter which are classified as niche sites. Niche sites are those that are smaller and less well-known than Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter but may afford your company the ability to interact with your best customers.

We introduce these other social platforms, help you identify which ones are most appropriate for your marketing needs, and guide you through the process of determining ...