How big is too big for a social network before it loses its value to the community?
Clearly investors and maybe even advertisers will argue that it can never be too big. Certainly the valuation of social media behemoth: Facebook supports this argument.
But wasn’t that what was said of MySpace before Facebook? At some point a network becomes too big to provide a valuable customer experience, thus setting itself up for other smaller networks to step in and glamour members into switching?
There are lessons that can be learned by considering parallels in other areas of our lives. Cities, for example become too big, too noisy and too crowded, eventually pushing residents and businesses out to the suburbs in search of a better quality of life.
Initially a city grows out of necessity and opportunity which quickly turns to greed at which point consideration for the resident’s experience in living and working there becomes a secondary priority.
Larger businesses who establish market dominance and/or monopolies of sorts eventually become slaves to profit generation rather than customer experience and customer value building – the strategies that initially drove their success.
They rest on their laurels and downplay the threat from smaller competitors and bank on the established loyalty of its customers. We need look no further than the recent fall of Research in Motion (RIM), which once owned the smart phone market and enjoyed fierce loyalty from its users, to understand this universal truism.
So is bigger really better when it comes to social networks?
MySpace, which once enjoyed the “behemoth social media” label that is now owned by Facebook, has been left for dead by the side of the road. While the business of MySpace continues, when compared to the reigning king of social networks it might as well be dead. Or is it?
MySpace may once again prove to be a case study and leader in the social networking space. Under its new ownership, the original “big social network” is reinventing what it invented so many years ago: a focused community of like-minded people connecting with each others who share their interests. It claims to now be a music and entertainment hub, streaming music and video and providing artist pages and radio stations. A hub? Isn’t that simply a new word for social network? A rose by any other name…
MySpace once again re-inventing the model?
Regardless, reverting to its original niche focus has seen MySpace’s fortunes change. There are now 40 million users visiting the site monthly in the US alone; a far cry from Facebook’s numbers but enough to sustain a valuable service to its committed community and a profitable enterprise for its owners.
I argue that behemoth social networks will eventually implode under their own weight and, like MySpace’s refocus on their original niche customer experience , a multitude of smaller, more focused networks will rise in their wake. Simply look at the growing popularity of niche networks such as Twitter, Twitpic, LinkedIn and Pinterest. They’re growing – and thriving – despite the growth of Facebook. In fact, I believe they are growing in popularity because of Facebook. People are overwhelmed with the information, media and entertainment overload that Facebook has become and are gravitating to narrower communities.
Marketers must be cognisant of the trend currents in this space. There are no sacred cows in social media and Facebook is certainly not an irreplaceable deity (sorry Zuch). The point being that social networks, like cities and big businesses before them must not lose sight of the customer experience in their never-ending quest for lower costs, bigger margins and greater profits.
What do you think? Is niche the new big in social networks?
Sam Fiorella – Sensei
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego
