Ad Storm #2 - Social Networking and Online Communities

Hey Guys,

I was thinking today about the plethora of Social Networking and Online Communities that are available today and just felt excited about the future. Most people look at this crowded space and feel it's cluttered and that Myspace/YouTube/Facebook is all you need. In a lot of cases, to go viral those three will do just fine, but there are real strong opportunity in being able to take advantage of smaller growing networks. The main benefits is less clutter to break through, wider exposure, and higher search engine visibility.

Go to Google and look up Alex Merced

I've made a lot of efforts to know who are the other Alex Merceds in the world and to make sure my results are on top. I've been able to beat results and lay a stronger search engine foundation than the Alex Merced from popular Metal Band, Necrophagist. While my highlander "there can only be one" approach to dominance in the Alex Mercedosphere may be a little much, this shows many of the benefits of being an online socialite.

Before we go further, read this article on growing social networks.


So Let's Explore these Benefits:



Less Clutter/Less Competition:

Sites like Myspace and Facebook have such large user numbers, it sounds like a great promotions tool due to the sheer amount of audience. Like my professor Earl Boatwright mentioned, facebook is getting special attention due to it's built in segmentation.

This is all true, these are great promotional tools and they are probably a better investment arguably than traditional broadcasting. Though we can't forget about the value of niches, and while Myspace and Facebook can sort of cater to niches but not like a niche social network can. Take a look at a site like Dogster which caters to a very niche market, Dog Lovers.

Although the problem with Niche social network is while you segment is at easier reach, the clutter among competition is greater since every ad is probably for similar products than yours.

This is where all these smaller general networks like Multiply come in handy cause it's not an obvious ground for competitors and probably has less clutter than myspace, meaning the odds of your ad shining through to more people.


Wider Exposure/Search Engine Visibility:

Ok, now imagine an avid net user checking all his profiles at all his favorite sites and the same ads keep showing up for this New Rock band, now he goes to search on google for the latest rock music. In the results are the profiles of that band in the ad at a lot of different networking sites his curiosity increase. He then finally check his myspace and see the band featured on the music page and finally he gives in to the frequent EXPOSURE to this band and checks them out.

I mean it's not really anything we all don't know already, but this extra effort to hit every end of the web payes off in many ways. If the wider exposure with the ads and profiles isn't enough, the amount of search engine visibility those profiles generate should be a clincher.

Check out AlexMercedRocks.info look at the right menu and see my many profiles

You'll notice not only did I have a lot of profiles I joined many niche communities and activley participated, yes this takes a lot of time and effort, but your spending it socializing which really isn't a bad deal.





A lot of old tools I feel aren't as utilized as much as they used to be. While mailing lists are still as popular as ever, Message Boards have been relegated to sort of standard site feature. While every website should have a message board, it's kinda useless if you don't put efforts to stimulate it's community.

- Create many fun threads that are always reply worthy like "What are you listening to now?" or the "Random thread" I've seen these go viral on many message boards and give something fun for community members to do and build inside jokes and board culture around.

Message boards single handedly made the opening day for The Gamers Lounge a huge success. I would go around and actually hang out at local gaming events and tell people about the store opening and tell them about special events that will be announced on our message board. We had almost 1000 posts before we even opened, although after we opened the in store community was so strong it kinda replaced the online activity, but luckily the message board became a built mailing list of everyone who already signed up.

Before we opened we had a special Beta Test event we announced on the message board where we had people come in and play for a few days before the opening to make sure all the computers worked. We also would have secret late night events announced on the message board which kept people signing up even if they weren't always posting, but posting did stay alive for quite a bit.

Bottom Line: Join as many social networks and online communities as possible... why not.