When it comes time to choose your direction in your social media marketing campaign, how much of a role does size of a social network play?

Judging by the other posts in this forum, I know what most of you would say: Yes. But then again, most posts are about the big 2... Facebook and Twitter. While these networks take up a large amount of the social networking industry with their 500 million + user base and top alexa rankings are they really the end all be all for a successful social networking campaign?

From my experience I'd say it depends. While the giants are always enticing and usually the biggest targets, one must think about a couple of things when choosing one of the top 10 largest social networks.

  • How many people in the network are in my target market?
  • Of those in my niche, how many can I actually reach?
  • How many other people are marketing to the same niche market on this network?


If your answers to those questions were "a lot", "not sure", and "probably a lot" respectively, then either you've not done your research or you are facing a network that may be too general for your campaign.

Given, most large networks have groups which cover niche markets, most of those groups have already been heavily marketed to by your competitors unless you're offering a completely new type of product nobody's ever sold before.

"What? you're telling me to market to a network that has only 500,000 members?!?" you ask with a look of shock and disbelief. Well, yes. The chances of you being the only person offering your product on a social network of 20k users is much higher. Besides that you have a much better chance of getting your profile on the home page. There's also a much higher chance people will respond to your messages in their inbox even though they don't know who you are. Most social networks that have 2 million members or less have a much higher chance of being a niche network completely dedicated to your niche, you just have to find them.

In today's internet, it's estimated that there are over 300,000 social networks out there and growing every day. These networks range from the very smallest niche networks that are just starting out, to medium/large sized networks which have already established themselves in their niche. My question then, is: Why are social network marketers so crazy about marketing on the social network giants where they are but a tadpole in a pond the size of the Pacific Ocean, when they could be the whale in the birdbath?

Among other things, large social networks often have high security against those trying to market on their site for free and go to lengths to try and limit social interactions of who they consider to be "freeloaders," while smaller social networks are often just happy to have more members and more member interaction.

So in the end, does size really matter? Can you squeeze more money out of facebook than you can from a modest social network within which you face no competition? You decide.