Reach vs. Niche: Must Social Communities Choose?

Dart-throwing for the day: Social communities - is there really a choice of reach vs. niche? Author Sarah Lacy (and as a panel moderator at today's Momentum Growth Conference, the one who posed the question) firmly believes that companies must choose one over the other as they grow. More of interest to startup communities, Lacy posits that acquisition values will be based on either one or the other.

The companies on stage with Lacy disagree. Ro Choy of RockYou spoke of the company's 25 million uniques - broad, virally-grown reach - that is now increasing in engagement, niche application by niche application. Tina Sharkey of Babycenter wants to see Babycenter users able to integrate their Babycenter home with their lives on other social networks.

In a trendy-but-real example, one could apply this thinking to calculating the value of a Facebook user. I tend to agree with Choy: per-user acquisition values will tend to be highly variable, and will be based upon the context of the application. If this is true, then the logic model implies that while both reach and niche must be considered in order to construct a compelling social community, companies must initially focus upon one or the other - you either start with a Babycenter and then reach out, or you start with a RockYou and then build niche applications to pitch to your mass audience. We'll see.

Comments

[kid mercury]

i think it is a management issue; social communities like wikipedia need to develop new incentive systems to ensure that niches are well-moderated.