Why Niche Platforms Should Not Be Overlooked.

When creating a plan to begin your brand’s social media presence it is common to believe that posting on popular platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Snapchat is ideal because of the large number of constant users. Although these platforms have a billion regular users, posts can get easily lost within the waves of other posts that are made daily. This could be a huge problem for small businesses trying to create a social media presence. A way to avoid your posts from getting lost is to move into niche platforms.

Retrieved from Get Community blog post

A niche platform is a space where communities with similar interests and values can easily communicate with each other. There are many different niche platforms available ranging from communities of bookworms to beer lovers or ones where you can find groups of any specific interests. Some examples of niche platforms are MeetUp, Goodreads, Untappd, and many others. Niche platforms would be an easy way to reach your target demographic directly.

Promoting your business through a niche platform can help save you money. To successfully promote your brand or product on large platforms (Facebook and Instagram) you have to put a large amount of money into promoting the post. This is money that not all companies have, especially smaller ones. This is a major reason why you should not overlook these niche platforms. Also, your posts on a niche platform have a higher chance of being seen by the right people compared to an Instagram post that can get put into an algorithm that you do not have control over. Most users on these niche platforms choose to be there based on their interests, such as beer lovers using Untappd, so creating a presence on these specific platforms will make it easier to reach your target audience.

An example of a great niche platform to get started with is MeetUp. MeetUp was launched in 2002 and is one of the largest online networks of small local groups with over 49 million users. The first thing your brand should do on this platform would be to begin building a community. This can be done by attending MeetUp events that share similarities to what your business is about and by creating events based on what your company is about. A small local brand can use this to their advantage by creating an event that targets their buyer persona. An example given by Martin Luenendonk is a software programming company creating a MeetUp event that is a training for their new software. From this MeetUp, they could gain feedback from their customers about the new software and they can begin to form relationships since they will be able to have face-to-face conversations with their customers. This is just one example; the possibilities with MeetUp are endless.

MeetUp

Untappd is a great platform for beer lovers. It was launched in 2010 and has about 9 million users. Unlike MeetUp where you can search for your specific groups with similar interests; this niche platform targets a specific interest group. Untappd is a great platform for small bar owners to use to promote their bar and to learn what beers their customers enjoy. Within this platform users can rate different beers, there are over 2 million beers in the database. Analytics can be drawn from these ratings informing you what beers people are enjoying which leads to deciding what should you serve. This platform uses geolocation as well so you can attach your venue location and when consumers search for bars on the app yours will pop up which can lead to bringing in newcomers.

Untapped

Niche platforms make it easy to pinpoint who you are trying to reach. It is more beneficial to you and your brand to start using niche platforms as part of your social media plan. There is nothing wrong with still promoting on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, but you will have more impact on those platforms if you can create a following on niche platforms and lead those individuals to your other social media profiles.

References:

Hyder, S. (2021, July 14). “Why Niche Communities Are the Future of Social Media Marketing” Inc.com Retrieved 2022, September 15. https://www.inc.com/shama-hyder/why-niche-communities-are-future-of-social-media-marketing.html

Rulkova, T. (2021, November 4). “How Untappd For Business Can Take Your Beverage Sales To The Next Level” Pour Me Beer. Retrieved 2022, September 15. https://pourmybeer.com/how-untappd-can-drive-your-beverage-sales-to-the-next level/#:~:text=Untappd%20will%20show%20you%20the,most%20popular%20at%20your%20venue.

Emily. “What’s a Niche Social Media Platform?” Get Community. Retrieved 2022, September 15.https://getcommunity.com/blog-posts/whats-a-niche-social-media-platform/

Luenendonk, M. (2019, September 18). “Using Meetup For Business Purposes” Cleverism. Retrieved 2022, September 15. https://www.cleverism.com/using-meetup-business-purposes/

Staff Author. (2017, October 2). “Meetup.com Making Friends by Joining Meetup Groups” Liveabout.com. Retrieved 2022, September 15. https://www.liveabout.com/meetupcom-1385101

Untappd Image. Untappd. Retrieved 2022, September 15. https://untappd.com/