Niche Microsites vs. Broadcast Hubs

• by Dan Bailey

I’ve been thinking through a recent SocialMediaToday blogpost; “Building Channel, or Why Microsites are a Bad Idea” by Maggie Fox. To quote specifically, “You need to start thinking like a media company. You need to build channel.” There are ideas here worth considering; namely, how not to throw out old broadcast marketing strategies, but rather successfully apply them to new Web technologies, sites and hubs. She doesn’t mention it, but inherent here I see the debate between Metcalfe’s Law of network effects, versus Chris Anderson’s extreme-niche Long Tail Theory. These theories have been around for years, yet still I sift through which work best for which situations. For me, I have to keep going back to the question: Do marketers go where their targets are, or operate under the “if you build it they will come” model? If its too expensive to constantly be going to where your targets are, its obviously not worth it. But the Web exists to thwart the concept that we all will just search the phone book and drive to the location of a specific brick-and-mortar store for what they think we want.

Image via Wikipedia

If you want my business, find me specifically where I live on the Web, and make me an offer I can’t refuse. This piece of buyer behavior and response is where it’s at – without it, the best sites in the world fail.

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Jake Aull | Marketing Strategy | Social Media & SEO | Digital & Creative
email | zenofbrand.com | @jakeaull | jakeaull.wordpress.com