The disruptive power of niche social networks

When social media was first created few people saw it as a marketing tool – that was until it was embraced by almost everyone with an internet connection. Darren Moffatt says niche social networks are the way of the future, even for traditional businesses.

Social media has changed the world, literally.

Every month billions of people now log in to various social media platforms to consume and post new content. This is a massive change in human activity, of global magnitude, with profound implications for business, government and academia. Like any rapid change in mass behaviour, it’s been driven by powerful viral feedback loops which have delivered exponential growth in user communities. Network memberships now dwarf those of even just five short years ago. One in every nine people on earth are now members of Facebook – a truly mind-blowing statistic.

But herein lies a clue to the future path of social media. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter are now ‘mega networks’ – the new utilities of the web.  And because they’re so generic they understandably struggle to be all things to all people. Open API’s and the explosion of app culture has negated this to a large degree. Through integration with their platforms, external third party developers have added a dizzying array of extra functionality that keeps more users on the main social platforms, for longer.

But the undeniable trend is for niche social networks. There’s an excellent research paper on the topic here.

Over the last few years my thinking on this topic has developed into something which, on a good day, might be called a theory. It goes like this:  that just as the internet itself has disrupted so many analogue industries such a publishing and music, some existing ‘old school’ digital businesses operating on non-social platforms are ripe for disruption via niche social networks.

Call me crazy or brave, but with my co-founder Ben, I’m about to test this theory with the launch of Housenet.com.au – the social network for real estate and property.

We think online real estate is an obvious target. In Australia, property portals are dominated by a handful of large media companies who effectively control the ‘means of production’. They’re great for listing and searching properties, but the user experience is essentially a lonely one. Yet all the data is telling us that people want a social online experience where ever possible. According to the recent Yellow Social Media Report, 62 per cent of all internet users are now active social media users, and  people are increasingly researching products and services on social media, rather than search engines.

We know too that Australians are obsessed with property, and this reflected in our online habits: Alexa confirms three real estate titles appear in our top fifty most popular websites. So when the Yellow Report analyses what people are searching and researching on social media you would expect housing to rate pretty highly, right?

Wrong. It doesn’t even appear at all.

The big question of course is, why not? After much research I can only conclude: because it simply can’t be done. The dominant real estate portals are inherently ‘non-social’. It’s impossible for users to ‘friend’ other users, chat online, comment, rate, and otherwise enjoy a genuinely social experience within the platforms of current property portals. Also, their integration into Facebook and other social media, while improving, is still very limited. And you can’t really search housing stock or property people on existing social networks – it’s just not designed for this.

So, the only immediate solution is a niche social network. We’re happy to oblige. But I’m sure housing is not the only market opportunity for this approach. It’s likely we’ll see more emerge in other industries over the short term too; it may be a global trend but local need and opportunity will ultimately drive innovation here.

My wish is that Housenet.com.au proves to be a successful example of this trend, and perhaps inspires others to launch their own niche social networks (be warned though – it’s not easy!). But more importantly, I hope we can prove the model works by adding real value to the lives of  the consumers and small business people who truly own the Australian housing market.

Darren Moffatt is an award-winning businessperson with sixteen years' experience in the finance and property-related sectors. He is currently the Founder & CEO of Housenet.com.au, and MD of Australia's leading home equity release finance broker, Seniors First. In 2010 he was one of only one hundred delegates from the top echelons of business, academia, and government invited to participate in the GAP National Economic Review 2010, a public policy think tank. He was invited back the following year and also participated in the 2011 Population Summit.