If You’re Going to Social Network - Do it With the Right Crowd

Posted on | April 22, 2008 |

Taking real advantage of the opportunities that social media sites afford means more than that deli.icio.us button at the bottom of a post. At SheFinds and MomFinds, we’re still sifting out the best ways to use these sites to market to women – busy, stylish, connected women in particular – but one thing is clear: the social sites that work for Gizmodo aren’t going to work for us.

Lots of people have lots of ideas about what truly utilizing social networking should mean. On ProBlogger, Darren Rowse hit on one strategy that will be key for our upcoming efforts: let others sell you. Our sites operate on some of the same principles as social shopping sites like StyleHive and Kaboodle – only on our sites, stylish, chatty writers are the ones telling our readers about the best stuff that’s out there. And we think that’s something women will want to share with one another.

With social media, we want to build a community of women who get style advice from SheFinds, give us advice on what they want to hear, and tell their networks about our community. But where are these women? Most of the big players in social media aren’t gender-specific, and even fewer focus on fashion and beauty.

Sites like Sk*rt and SugarLoving, though, are woman- and style-oriented, allowing users to skip over the noise that doesn’t interest them on a more general site, and increasing the chances that traffic generated from those sites will be higher-quality – even if the women on these sites don’t match up exactly with our core reader demographic, they’re more likely to find and take interest in our content than someone logging onto one of the social media giants.

The core of these sites seems to match up with the way women shop – users are connected, interacting, seeking out and giving advice within the community. This is the feel our websites aim to convey, and marketing to women through social media is a natural extension of our brand.

The space isn’t nearly as crowded as the news or sports categories, so reaching women most effectively may just depend on building relationships within the niche sites that do exist.

Log on in coming weeks to find out what works for us – or maybe you’ll see us on Sk*rt before that.

Comments