When Facebook started, it was a vertical social network of Harvard students, but it has grown to become the social network for everyone. Facebook now dominates social networking, with more than 500 million active users and more than 700 billion minutes spent on Facebook per month.
However, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Facebook to be all things to all people. Facebook is designed primarily to help us connect with our real-world friends. For example, when we try to add a friend on Facebook, we receive a pop-up warning, “Please only send this request if you know her personally.” Facebook considers too many requests to unknown people as spam and has shut down or suspended many accounts of Facebook users for doing this.
Many people are looking to connect with people within social networks focused on specific professions or interests. This unfulfilled need with Facebook has created huge opportunity for entrepreneurs to create vertical social networks. I’ve developed several vertical social networks, such as AdoptionVoices.com, GenealogyWise.com and Viajamos.com.br (a Brazilian travel social network). These vertical social networks can provide features that will likely never be offered by general social networks. For example, a cooking social network such as BakeSpace.com has functionality to facilitate recipe sharing.
Mark Evans from Sysomos (a Marketwire company), recently said that, “Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace dominate the social networking landscape but there are many people looking for a more relevant place to digitally network… If everyone is partying at the same place, there may be opportunities for other places to establish themselves as the new, cool place.”
It would not be surprising to hear an adoption attorney say ,“I already have an account with Facebook and LinkedIn, but I don’t need another social network.” If this attorney was referring to another general social network, I would certainly agree with him. However, if the attorney discovered a popular adoption social network, he would probably have a strong interest in joining. In that example, adoption is a much deeper vertical niche than a general social network. Generally, the deeper the niche, the greater the levels of passion and engagement will be for people who are interested in that niche.
Many of us have joined vertical social networks to find more relevant sites to digitally network with others who share our interests. According to a Nielson report in June 2010, 22% of all time online is spent on social sites, such as social networks and blogs. ¾ of global consumers who go online use these social sites. The number of people visiting these social sites increased by 24% over last year, and the average visitor spends 66% more time on these sites than a year ago.
A writer on Hover.com recently wrote, “I personally love the niche social networks I use. They allow me to meet more people who share a stronger interest with me about video games. You may not get the quantity of advertising & people on these niche social networks like you do on Facebook. However, the quality is higher and having a relevant offering for the people is going to make your brand stand out more.”
Janet Teo from FutureLab recently wrote, “Where I do spend a lot more time is on vertical social networks. Nike Running is one of my favourites. I am training for a run and it allows me to compete with friends and people from around the world via my iPod. It keeps me motivated and offers a real world linkage that Facebook doesn’t have… Vertical social networks will have smaller users in total, but will allow those users to engage with each other in a much deeper way.”
Also, vertical social networks can often provide better monetization opportunities than general social networks. Andres Chaves from the TCU Explorations in New Media project wrote, “Because these networks are so focused they’re also going after a different type of advertising, often at a higher price.” Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester Research said, “Companies are learning that these smaller communities may reach people that are more valuable to their brands.”
Vertical social networks can provide deeper passion, engagement, content, monetization per page view, and networking relationships. As said by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing, “The Future of Social Networks is Vertical.”
Posted on December 3rd, 2010 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Online Communities, Social Networking
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