A Niche You Might Scratch: Niche Platforms and Social Media Strategies
Social Media is a fantastic way to bring attention, engage with, and recruit a network of customers to your brand. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have over a combined 4 billion active users (Statista, 2020). That is an enormous reach with many benefits. But is it always the best way for a message to be heard? An example was shared in a lecture by my professor that walking outside and shouting a message can often get ignored by many. The message isn’t personal. The message might not be relevant to all. If the message was to shop at a store, or eat at a restaurant, I would not think much of it. What if an acquaintance came up directly to me, and shared a different message? “Brandon, I know you love wings. Come try out our new restaurant. We have awesome tangy buffalo wings!” I love tangy buffalo wings. This person knew what kind of customer to go after, was able to identify me with their buyer persona, and delivered meaningful news to me. Niche social media platforms can be a tool to help us share our story in a similar manner.
Niche platforms focus on smaller, specific interest groups (Farmer, 2020). While your message might not reach as many possible viewers as the larger platforms, the quality of interactions can be deeper, which may lead to better opportunities of fostering relationships with a group that already fits your values. Examples of niche social media platforms include Reddit, Discord, and GitHub. The ever growing list of niche platforms is quite extensive, and whether it’s career-related, or for a hobby, you are a short “Google Search” away from finding a new online community to join.
One Forum to Rule Them All
If you have ever had a question about a product, researched a topic online, or even wanted to look into a conspiracy theory, you have stumbled onto Reddit. This seventh most popular site in the Unites States is a titanic collection of forums (called subreddits) (Widman, 2020). This is a very convenient location to find consumers. Using Reddit for social strategies can be tricky. It is frowned on to self-promote and do obvious advertising (Redtaboo, 2020). If you have a strong brand, and a passionate community, a subreddit may be dedicated to you. One example of this would be the Traeger Wood-Fired Grills subreddit. You can browse through posts that share recipes, finished products, grill mods, pellet advice, or even moral support after your first “flameout”. These online discussions among fellow “pellet-heads” can help Traeger with their sales, and conveniently puts their users in an active community. I would look for a substantial increase of activity with the Traeger subreddit in the days leading up to Super Bowl Sunday. Influencers can join these communities, or even rise from within and may persuade others with their actions and advice. A drawback with user created content is the company doesn’t own the content, and doesn’t have complete control about what is posted for the world to see. If there is any question as to the positive impact of a Reddit influencer, just look at 34-year-old Keith Gill and what he did for GameStop stocks (GameStop at one point was up more than 1600% for the year) (Verlaine & Banerji, 2021). I believe a very powerful use of Reddit can be for social media monitoring, the process of identifying and determining what is being said about a brand, their product, and even their competitors (BigCommerce, 2021).
This Strikes a Discord
Discord is a group-chatting app launched in 2015 as a place for gamers to build communities (Delfino, 2020). There are now many different channels of topics (called servers) for about any interest for people to join (Delfino, 2020). Discord is very interesting to me as I like to game, and it has gained so much relevance lately. We were having a group discussion in class about niche social media platforms, and a classmate shared some interesting information about its sudden increase of popularity. Daily downloads for the Discord app set new heights as the Covid Pandemic set in, and again when the popularity of Among Us took off (Stephen, 2020). Among Us is a cross-platform, hidden role indie game that allows a group to figure out who the impostors are before they eliminate the rest of the crew. Because of the required chatting to function, and Discords easy integration with Twitch, it’s easy to see how Discord is a convenient companion app for the popular game (Stephen, 2020). This unique combination of circumstances created a demanding number in need for the Discord services. Game developers can also use Discord to create communities dedicated to their games, and can easily build hype for upcoming releases, keep fans posted on development progress, and inform gamers when updates are released. I had been following the progress of an indie football game called Legend Bowl on its Discord channel. I have been able to see videos of King Javo coding the game, sharing video updates, and giving supporters the chance to share opinion to give input on the direction where the game is heading. I think King Javo does a great job of social media listening on his Discord channel and giving gamers some ownership over what they are playing.
You Git What You Give
GitHub is an online command-line tool that allows developers to store projects, collaborate work, and network with likeminded people. You help contribute to projects, or just download programs to use for yourself (Brown, 2019). As an educator who teaches computer science courses, I have spent some time on GitHub, the service has been a great resource for me to get ideas for student projects, and to see how different programmers solve a variety of problems. The Raspberry Pi Foundation was founded in 2009 to promote the study of computer science in schools and created the single-board Raspberry Pi computers (Wikipedia, 2020). The Raspberry Pi computer is the UK’s best-selling PC of all time (Wikipedia, 2020). Hobbyists and educators can use these computers as small weather stations, game machines, robots, and much more. The Raspberry Pi foundation has operating system software, tools, and documentation stored on its GitHub page. There are also many other repositories dedicated for Raspberry Pi coding projects for users to download, modify, and use. GitHub helps bring awareness to the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s mission, and the open-source nature helps to innovate its work.
Whether it’s technology, DIY projects, local gatherings, beers to sample, or live streaming, there is a niche social media platform for you and your brand. A great place to start is your mission statement, goals, and values, then comparing it to the people you want to reach. You can cross-list this with the different platforms available, and see which best fits your needs. I am a believer that this will lead to authentic relationships and increased customer loyalty.
References
Banks, C. (n.d.). Photograph. Unsplash. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from https://unsplash.com/photos/3IFYE6UHFBo
BigCommerce. (2021, February 3). What is Social Media Monitoring? Retrieved from BigCommerce: https://www.bigcommerce.com/ecommerce-answers/what-social-media-monitoring/
Blacker, A. (2020, September 28). Among Us! Creates a Hockey Stick for Discord’s Downloads. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from Apptopia: https://blog.apptopia.com/among-us-creates-a-hockey-stick-for-discords-downloads
Broadbent, H. (n.d.). Photograph. Unsplash. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from https://unsplash.com/photos/bw5a4zQMRCI
Brown, K. (2019, November 19). What Is GitHub, and What Is It Used For? Retrieved February 3, 2021, from How-To Geek: https://www.howtogeek.com/180167/htg-explains-what-is-github-and-what-do-geeks-use-it-for/
Delfino, D. (2020, March 26). ‘What is Discord?’: Everything you need to know about the popular group-chatting platform. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-discord
Farmer, E. (2020, May 11). 5 Useful Niche Social Networks for Professional Industries. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from Theegirlsmedia.com: https://www.threegirlsmedia.com/2020/05/11/niche-social-networks/#:~:text=A%20niche%20social%20network%20is,not%20cater%20to%20all%20audiences
Redtaboo. (2020). Guidelines for Self-Promotion on Reddit. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion
Statista. (2020, October). Most Popular Social Networks Worldwide as of October 2020, Ranked by Number of Active Users. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/#professional
Stephen, B. (2020, September 28). Among Us is Behind a Huge Spike in Discord’s Mobile App Downloads. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/28/21473602/among-us-downloads-discord-app-record
Verlaine, J.-A., & Banerji, G. (2021, January 29). Keith Gill Drove the GameStop Reddit Mania. He Talked to the Journal. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/keith-gill-drove-the-gamestop-reddit-mania-he-talked-to-the-journal-11611931696
Widman, J. (2020, December 26). What is Reddit? Retrieved February 3, 2021, from Digital Trends: https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/what-is-reddit/
Wikipedia. (2020, December 31). Raspberry Pi Foundation. Retrieved February 21, 2021, from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi_Foundation
