May 24, 2006
We recently talked about MySpace being the new mass-media and how this could be a real weakness in their business model; if they even have any.
There is an interesting case study that sheds some real light on what we talked about. Harvey Weinstein recently purchased a piece of aSmallWorld which caters to upscale clients.
The site is a social networking site that gives their clients a place to interact and congregate online while providing the platform for luxury marketers to offer them their products and services.
The community itself is only about 130,000 members, but it provides a place for adult conversation without the kid stuff that permeates MySpace.
This is a great example of a niche market and how to reach out to it.
One thing that they do is to create the need to belong. It's built like a club that only allows certain people to enter. Here is their terms of membership from the front page of their site:
"We have imposed certain criteria in order to keep the network private and exclusive. To join, you need to be invited by a trusted member.
"If you have not received an invitation, you can ask your friends to invite you. If you have no friends who are members yet, you simply need to be patient."
You know what this does in this demographic, they are creating the concept as a place that you need to be part of. What better thing to create desire and buzz by saying that you can't even join unless you're contacted?
Within the niche they are reaching out to, I think that they are getting everything right. Mass-media places like MySpace won't be able to compete in this area with them.
Think of these types of things within the demographic that you're reaching out to.
