Niche Social Sites

Cause I am UNIQUE…..

Popular shopping and community website among young females.

Mix of shopping and social networking website

Product categories include style & fashion, home & garden, and gadgets & gizmos.

Shoppers are allowed to add products from any other site on the web, sharing information about the product and deals and coupons available for the products.

Kaboodle.com does not sell products, shoppers will be directed to the merchant’s website when they click on the shop for it button.

Kaboodle.com - ENTERTAINMENT

Products

Customer reviews

Advice on any product

‘Help me choose’ – helps in choosing between options

‘What I’m wearing’ – gives fashion trends

Wish list, Shopping list

Kaboodle.com - FEATURES

Brands can use the site to publicize coupons and deals on the site

Fashion brand sites can use style board to sell the complete range of apparels

Brands can promote by advertising their own products on the products page to the customers pertaining to the ongoing discussions

Jewelry houses can use the platform to sell complete bridal jewelry sets

Corporates can use the site to launch new styles and promote them through the discussion forums

How corporate should use the site

Gender specific - only

focussed towards female

customers and trends, focus

should be gender- biasing

Should not let the polls or

blog content be related to

religious/sex/caste or

Anything that lead to

controversies.

How corporate should not use this site

Brands Associated with Kaboodle

Social Picks- FINANCE• It’s a website for stock market investors to share investment ideas, exchange

market research, and track others investment results.

• It also gives recommendations by Finance Gurus like Warren Buffet and Jim Cramer

• Encourages sharing ides through Photos, Videos and Analysis

• Gives live market News which can affect investment decisions

• Gives options to share on popular social networking websites like Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter and LinkedIn

• Stock Market movement and related news is updated on a minute by minute basis.

• The Mobile App is a newer facility provided by the Website

On the fly market updates help investor to make wiser decisions.

Listing by top experts in terms of wins and losses is given.

The Articles shared by other members are also shown.

The newsfeed has articles from Reuters, AP, USAToday.com, and other sources along with a save button which will automatically populate the URL.

The “All-time Popular Picks” list gives a list of evergreen stocks.

The “Also pick” feature helps to know new stocks that is related to the stock the investor is looking for.

Social Picks- ADVANTAGES

Users can Cheer or vote an analysis to show their support.

One’s own analysis can also be added.

Limited Beta accounts also offered without any subscription charges.

Users can also rate other users thereby affecting their reputation and weighing their recommendation collaboratively.

A new plan of activity monitoring that will notify users of suspicious behavior.

Enables Collaborative investment research.

Lets you generate a trust score for every investor.

Social Picks- ADVANTAGES

Promotes Herd Mentality that is people see where others have invested and mindlessly follow the herd.

Since Virtually anyone can give advice about any stock, stock Prices may be inflated as given on the website.

Website only in English and no other language.

No Online support (24*7 call center) available.

No support material like tutorials given which would help in analysis of stocks investment.

Social Picks - DISADVANTAGES

How brands are using the platform?

Selecting targeted visuals from social link/photo sharing website like Gentlemint enhances marketing content, encourage customer interaction and raise social media responses.

Various companies can include the board link in all new email marketing campaigns. For example, add a 'Follow us' button on Gentlemint within a campaign email alongside the links to pages on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. This will eventually increase brand awareness and help to build customer relationship.

To monitor what the subscriber clicked on in order to get to a website, the way is to pin images of the newest products and services and include links back to the company website in the Pin's description in Gentlemint.

Popular content can also be repinned regularly to keep boards fresh. This will help the companies to be up to date with the ever changing choice of customers about the brands as well as make suitable business plan according to the situation.

GENTLEMINT-BUSINESS

Examples to illustrate important points

Lululemon specializes in selling yoga clothing

and attire, and this is well-reflected on their

board in Gentlemint.

Their pin boards have a heavy focus on yoga

and fitness in general, with much less emphasis

on their own products. In this way, they can

attract yoga fans and practitioners that may

not necessarily be Lululemon customers in

hope of winning them over.

GENTLEMINT-BUSINESS

Focus on best practices

Gentlemint has a smaller base and is primarily comprised of a male readership. As the public is strongly responding to the visual pinboard concept, various companies can choose appropriate links to add to boards keeping the audience in mind.

The companies can also do some research about what the male demographic is interested in. See what they're sharing, and identify what's popular (and what's not).

Another best practice of making business from Gentlemint is to include a sign-up form in a prominent position on Gentlemintboards along with pages on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. To increase the number of new opt-ins, consider including a targeted incentive offer to sign-up. A dedicated sign-up form is another easy method to track the impact of this sign-up source. Loyal customer base increases with the help of this sign-up offer

GENTLEMINT-BUSINESS

How Not to Use them

As niche social sites like Gentlemint

attract users that are already interested in

a specific industry or business so there’s

also less competition on niche sites, so

users shouldn’t bombarded with as many

Advertisements as they would have been

on Facebook. Businesses shouldn’t aim to

become the “next Facebook.” Instead,their

ultimate goal should be to unite people

who are interested in their services and

industry, which consequently lead to

increased sales.

GENTLEMINT-BUSINESS

The major social networks are great for reaching broad markets, but there are thousands of niche social networks out there that cater to groups withmore focused interests.

By engaging with customers in their specialised spaces, it can build richer brand relationships and loyalty.

The number of niche networks on offer has soared exponentially over the past few years.

It’s easy to see why these social spaces are a rich ground for organisations to flourish as they have the potential to engage with consumers that are a perfect fit for their brand, products or services.

However, there are some risks involved – these niche networks are considered a private place where consumers can relax and talk about their interests -organisations barrelling in to sell products or muscle in on commentary will find they don’t receive a warm welcome and could in fact damage their brand image with the very consumers they wanted to reach.

CONCLUSION - BUSINESS

How Brands are using this platform

It is a “Social Cataloging” website owned by Amazon founded by Otis Chandler and launched in January 2007.

With a user base of 20 million members, Goodreads have an Alexa ranking of 229.

The website allows users to freely search Goodreads' extensive user-populated database of books, annotations, and reviews. Users can also create their own groups of book suggestions and discussions.

The site provides default bookshelves—read, currently-reading, to-read and other customized bookshelves. Goodreads features a rating system of one to five stars, with the option of accompanying the rating with a written review.

Goodreads also have their blog which is a fantastic platform for the authors and readers to meet and exchange opinions and suggestions.

GOODREADS-BOOK READING

How corporates should use it1. Currently only Authors use this platform to advertise

their books. 17,000 authors are currently using Goodreads for promotion.

Goodreads can also be used by publishing house to

promote their publications. Publication houses like

- Penguin Random House, Harper Collins can use the

platform to launch their new publications or re-launch

their best sellers.

GOODREADS-BOOK READING

How corporates should use it3. Amazon itself uses it by providing the option

to users to buy the book from them, both the

hard copy and e-book version.

GOODREADS-BOOK READING

4. Various Non Profit education institutes can use this platform to promote their good work, add more supporters and get more funds. Like –‘Building Tomorrow’ initiative and ‘Raising a reader’ initiative ‘Adopt a library project’ in Africa and ‘Asha for education’ project in India.

How corporates should use it

5.Different items

like accessories,

dress, jewelleries

associated with

books can be sold

at this platform.

GOODREADS-BOOK READING

How corporates should not use Goodreads

Publishing houses should not get associated with controversial books which may affect their image.

In 2011 Amazon decided to scrutinize the reviews by readers towards a book or an author, which led to huge hue and cry over taking away the freedom of expression from users. This gave Amazon a bad name by the users.

Authors and Publishing house should not get into banter with the readers as this would again tarnish the image of both.

Goodreads is associated with many non-profit education groups which is sometimes associated with a specific region, religion, race etc. This platform should not be used to defame any particular region, religion, race etc.

GOODREADS-BOOK READING