Niche Platforms Thought Paper

There are many niche platforms that exist, from Reddit, to Goodreads, to Letterboxd, to Nextdoor, and more. These platforms offer a safe, targeted space for the very niche interests people have. Goodreads is a book reviewing website. Letterboxd is a website where people can review movies. Reddit is home to many discussions and ask me anything forums. Nextdoor is specifically for the neighborhood and the surrounding area. These websites and apps offer a place where people with specific interests can meet and discuss their hobbies and what they are interested in. It is like a more specific Facebook group.

The benefit of these niche platforms to your social media strategy is that you have your whole audience concentrated in one specific place. The people in this niche app/website aim to connect with “like-minded audiences” and are looking for a safe community that shares their interests.

“Unlike online public forums, the benefit of closed groups is that they encourage community members to open up on a personal level amongst other people with similar interests. This increased trust enables businesses to build closer relationships with their audiences and drives engagement.If you go to a Facebook group, for example, you only have a part of your audience because there are various groups about the same niche thing. When you have a website specifically created for one specific interest, you are able to have more of your audience pool to work with.”

As a business joining these sites, you are able to more accurately target your audience. You can use these sites as a way to promote your business, connect with potential clients, and network with people who may be interested in collaborating with you in the future (this last one works really well for influencers). Another benefit of these niche websites is if one of your goals in your social media strategy is to get more traffic on your website or social pages, you can use these niche websites to direct traffic to your page. To give you an example, I have seen multiple movie reviewers post part of their review on Letterboxd with a sentence at the end stating, “If you want to see my complete thoughts check out my full review at…” and they will insert their YouTube link. This is a way to direct traffic from one website to your website or page.

If one of your social media goals is to have more user interaction, these niche sites will allow you to interact with more of your target audience in a more direct way. You can do this by doing question and answer segments, or in some cases, your target audience may comment directly under posts you make.

Using these niche websites also allows for assured date accuracy. Anything you post will be directly related to your target audience so you will know for sure if a strategy is working or not. It can also give you an into what your audience is asking or posting. If

One example of a celebrity or influencer who uses one of these niche platforms effectively is Chandler Ainsley. She is what is considered a booktuber (meaning she makes YouTube videos reviewing books). She has about 80.8k subscribers and always links her Goodreads on her YouTube videos and vice versa. On her Goodreads profile, she has a very short description of who she is, a link to her YouTube channel, and then in the description, she includes her social media @’s. This is a great way to drive traffic from one platform to the other. Sometimes when she reviews books on the platform, she will give a short description and say something similar to “more thoughts to come on my YouTube channel.” Depending on the book, at times she will write a full review and not say that. Sometimes she will say “full review on YouTube video.” She gets a lot of interaction on this website. Many people will comment on her reviews, and she has a direct conversation with the people she is trying to target in her YouTube videos. Her posts get some really good interaction, and she is able to gauge, based on her Goodreads reviews, which books her audience would be more interested in her elaborating more on in a video.

Focusing on these niche platforms and getting to know your target audience could help with figuring out what works and what doesn’t in a social media strategy. It can make the information you gather more accurate and help build a relationship with that audience you want to reach.