Social Network Niche Marketing seems to be similar to blog marketing in that your going after a specific audience (that you know specific blogs have).  The problem is, with a Social Network, it gets more complicated, as very well explained by my fellow Know More Media Blogger, Gary Bourgeault, in Social Networks, Targeted Ads, Niche Markets - 2.

In fact, of all the Know More Media Bloggers, I read Gary Bourgeault the most as every blog he authors he gets great information, stuff I generally don't come across myself but which complements the Web Analytics and Buzz Marketing angle - which he also does covers at www.Thealphamarketer.com.

With Niche Marketing on Social Networks, Gary brought up something that is the Pink Elephant here…the bigger a social network becomes, the less targeted it can be.   Sure, a Newspaper can do behavioral targeting and I know the New York Times and Wall Street Journal do Behavioral Targeting - so they still get good results even if there's all sorts of people reading the papers online.

Some members in my Social Media and Community White Label Social Network on Ning.com (invite only for my WAA Committee members) have asked me why is my white label social network is not on Facebook - like Facebook is the answer to everything.  The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it's not.

"…The catch-22 for portal-type sites is if they try to get more niche, they cease being what they are and turn into something else. The Internet is no different than broadcast TV when cable came along. There will be niche channels and their will be general interest channels. Broadcast is general interest and cable is niche.

Web portals and social networking is the same thing. It doesn't matter what the flavor of the month is, whether MySpace, Facebook or whoever comes next: they're still general sites for a general purpose. Facebook decided to step out of being a niche when they changed into a general audience site. While their numbers of grown, the unique audience they served no longer exists. It won't matter what little gadgets and widgets they add, it's now just another form of a scaled audience attractor.

Question is….do I want a Niche type of Social Network on Facebook…and the answer is …. maybe not.

Now, Social Networks, Targeted Ads, Niche Markets - 2 deals more with Advertising and not so much membership; but I bet if you did want to target Niche Advertising you'd have to target the members specific groups in Facebook, not so much the network itself; that's my guess.

"…I think the closer content is to a person's interests, the more likely they'll be interested in what advertisers have to offer.

To be just hopping around and interacting on social networks and then suddenly have an ad appear that happens to be connected to a customers interests, is no different to me than watching broadcast TV show and having a commercial come on that happens to be related to my specific interests.

I agree, it seems reasonable activity to me.  The only difference between broadcast TV and a Social Network is the medium ….. people who consume media on a computer are often multitasking while those watching TV tend to be focused in passively viewing what's on the set, or actively changing the channel.

However, in one sense, Gary Bourgeault has left out (or not dealt with personalization) that Social Networks, by using the Web, can take advantage of personalization and thereby, using cookie data (when it's available) show different ads to what it thinks are audiences receptive to a niche - that's something you can't do with Broadcast TV and what has not yet, to my knowledge, been done with Cable TV. 

You could, in theory, monitor usage for each cable box (account) and target to the audience behind the set of each household - but even that would be hit and miss as you don't know for sure who is sitting behind the set.