Jeff Bennett's Blog

Targeted media has resulted across all forms of media over time as consumers seek more specificity. We have witnessed this with the evolution of magazines with Life, Time and NewsWeek serving as the platform that became thousands of different targeted titles form Ski to FlyFisherman to Car and Driver to Cooking Light and more. This proved true again with the big three TV networks then making way for thousands of cable stations that range from ESPN to Food Network to VH1 to Discovery Channel and more. We have witnessed this phenomena again with the local and national radio spawning the era of digital satellite radio with thousands of channels offering every type of music genre, news and information. So now is it any surprise that we will see this same trend with Social Media.

For years now the Internet has facilitated the formation of communities where like minded people can share their experiences. Some large players like Yahoo Groups, Tripod, ezBoard, Delphi provided technology platforms for some communities. Many of the more serious vertical communities were more enterprising and either built or integrated their own sites like Photo.Net, DavesGarden, Craftster, Geek, SplitCoastStampers. Each of these sites are examples of very deep and rich targeted social media properties that serve millions of enthusiasts and audience in vertical categories monthly.

Fellow social media guru and blogger Leigh Householder has published about the big opportunity for targeted social media in her new Social Manifesto. The graphic accompanying this blog comes from Leigh’s work and illustrates the transformation that is underway. Leigh sees a bright future for the participants, audience and those companies that will provide monetization of these targeted social media sites. I concur completely with Leigh’s manifesto.