There are a lot of startups jumping on the social media bandwagon. Some of them, like the game developer Playdom, are swinging around in the Facebook jungle. Playdom generated more than $50 million in sales last year, and they expect to double revenues this year. Yowza. And, there’s more space in the jungle: Facebook’s traffic has doubled since last year, and in March they had 116 million unique visitors (according to comScore). Facebook is a lively platform for startups, and so is Twitter. Sawhorse Media, for example, puts on an awards ceremony for Twitter users called the Shorty Awards. Startups can easily offer services (like games or organization tools) to enhance the current social media platforms, and there are hundreds of groups working on that concept.
Not all startups want to play in the Facebook or Twitter field, though. Many of them, like Foursquare, want to start their own social media trend. Over one million smartphone users have downloaded Foursquare, a location based software game. Ning is another social media site that allows users to create or join networks of people with a common interest. Ning has the largest number of social networks of any site, and landed $15M in venture funding last year. Investors are paying attention to the social media world, because they’ve watched it explode and they know it’s going to keep growing.
What, exactly will be the “next big thing” in social media? Social media has made sharing possible on many levels. People share interests, likes and dislikes, reviews and so on, and there’s a lot of space out there for experimentation in the social media field. And, there’s a lot happening. For example, this blog post is 1 of 300,000 blog posts published in this hour, which means that about 7 million blog posts go live each day. Yeesh! So, are we most in need of social media startups to help us sort through the content we share? Or will the next trend be about shopping with your friends through Swipely or Blippy? It’s sure gonna be interesting, whatever it is….
But remember one thing, just because it is a hot new start-up or trend doesn’t mean that it is a new marketing opportunity for your small business. What it does mean is that validation is happening all around you that the world of social media is growing like crazy. That is great news! But remember, most of these startups are not targeting a business audience with new social media marketing tools, but a consumer audience that is socializing, playing and just having fun. That means that the numbers of new people that will participate will just keep growing. It is all part of the social media eco-system that we, as small business owners, can use and leverage to our advantage. Just know that most of theses new startups are growing your social media eco-system, not necessarily your social media marketing tool chest.
