Social Markets for Social Media: Synergy

And now to continue with my series begun at this week's opening.  Obviously what impacts sales and usage on any social media sites the most are the people that make up the "social" part of this media.  How much control you want over your own content and the content "pool" around you largely dictates where you'll go to advertise (Facebook, for example, is usually more professional than Myspace).  Goals - like making money or gaining "fans" - are a factor in social media site choice, but the biggest consideration in the social media pool is another "social" aspect - not who you're marketing to, but who you're marketing with.

As we've seen, Facebook has developed a competitive tool to wield against Google's Youtube, though sometimes it seems that they are more in sync than butting heads.  That is, Facebook's (relatively) new video capabilities allow it to support Youtube videos that users desire to post, trafficking more hits not only to Facebook's site, but to Youtube's as well.  So, in some ways, it's not exactly a competition for the monopoly on internet video clips; Facebook and Youtube can actually work together to create more hits for both sites than either one was getting alone.  Ah, synergy.  It works in the real social realm, and here is one example of it working in the media realm.

And synergy is exactly why it's not enough to "just" have a Facebook page or Twitter profile, especially if you want to be a viable competitor in the social media market.  Of course, either one (or, increasingly, both) is necessary to at least have an idea of the "behind-your-back" talk about you (and possibly influence it a little), but it's not sufficient to stay afloat in the social media marketing world.  The "niche" market is an increasingly popular idea - or, rather, the "niche" audience; they are springing up exponentially, and for any and all reasons: dating sites, GLBTQ support groups, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles die-hards...

And synergy - that is, social media partnerships - is tapping into the social media sites web.  (It's like holding a mirror to a mirror, really: a single social media outlet webs people together into a social network of individuals; niche marketing techniques connects single social media outlets into a web of their own!)  Obviously, a social media ad campaign can reach more people - even those in a niche market that has nothing to do with the particular product or service being hyped-up - this way.

This particular form of social (media) network networking is resulting in some unlikely partnerships as well.  For example, the makers of the movie "Julie and Julia" - Sony Pictures - partnered with a cooking website to create a broader target audience than simply youngish, web savvy aspiring culinary artists and/or people who like Julia Child.  The partnership of Sony Pictures and Bakespace.com cast a wider net to include bloggers, stay-at-home moms and women in general.  (Just as an aside, most efforts to bring women together typically result in their empowerment.  So, any synergistic relationship that increases the connectivity of women is fine by me!)

Niche audience marketing is imperative for successful deployment of social media!

Photo Credit: Lumaxart