You understand the importance of social media marketing; you know what to pin, when to retweet, and what kind of status update will generate a ton of shares. And while social powerhouses like FB, Twitter, Youtube and Pinterest are dynamic marketing resources, it’s time to go beyond the Big Four. Some lesser known social sites can better reach a specific niche market and help spark more genuine interest and a stronger connection between you and your audience. Let’s explore a few!
Polyvore
Polyvore is an excellent platform for any apparel, accessory, home decor and fashion brand. Completely free to use, Polyvore is a social commerce site that gives your brand the power to reach 20 million monthly unique viewers. It’s the ultimate style community, where users not only post items, but create collages, collections and sets of their favorite fashions. You can connect with leading members, promote your product through your collages and collections, and link your creations back to your other social sites.
Users create and share collections of their favorite fashion pieces
Foodie
Yes, Pinterest is a great resource to share your food and drink passion, but Foodie takes it one step farther. Foodie is social site exclusively dedicated to lovers of anything food, from recipes to restaurants, single images to collections. It’s a platform ideal for sharing ideas and recipes using your product, and can be tailored specifically to the time of year. Holiday recipes, summer snack ideas, the perfect Valentine’s Day meal for couples, and so forth.
Waleno
An online shopping destination that has grown rapidly since its 2012 inception, Waleno is a community-focused site with over 350,000 virtual stores in its database, from major brands to small independent boutiques. The social ecommerce site caters to both shoppers and brands, giving its members the ability to follow their favorite stores and other members, create collections and fashion boards and post products from around the Web. You can also connect your Waleno collections to other social networks, such as tagging Facebook friends to specific products. Boasting over 3 billion “saves” to date with over 20 million products listed, the San Francisco startup has gained national recognition from big media such as Business Week, Forbes and Glamour, who highlights Waleno as the best way to build a universal wishlist.
Quora
Quora is Q&A site, and gives you the opportunity to share your expertise within a specific niche community. It’s more than merely promoting your brand, but gives you a chance to connect with people by answering questions in your field, share stories and create original content. The amount of people you reach may not be as high as other social sites, but your interaction will be on a much more intimate, personal basis.
Tumblr
While Tumblr has gained popularity in the past few years, many marketers still don’t take advantage of it’s social prowess. If you haven’t yet delved into the tumbling culture, the statistics might shock you: Tumblr has more active users under 25 than Facebook. So if you’re targeting America’s youth, this is one resource you don’t want to neglect. This is a site where regular users more freely express themselves, their interests and their likes, and gives you an excellent opportunity to reach out and connect with them on what actually appeals to them.
