Why else would they spend all their time discussing books, or vitamins, or art, or real estate?

How do you find these highly focused online communities? The same way the users find them, most likely, through search, blogs, and word-of-mouth.

Here are some examples of microcommunities:

           -webmd
            -librarything
           -donorchoose
            -thinkvitamin
            -realestatevoices
            -deviantart
             -sportsshooter
            -cork’d
            -imbee (facebook for kids)
            -wikihow

WebProNews Video Anchor Kara Ratliff contributed to this article.

Our coverage of SMX Social Media includes video interviews with Danny Sullivan, Josh Schachter, and many more influencers. Visit WebProNews Video for these exclusive chats today!

Dave McClure offered the Facebook view of making the most out of its growing userbase. First, it helps to reference people in your network, or people you want to reach in other networks.

Many Facebook users probably underutilize tagging, but it helps to get the attention of others. Tagging a photo or video with someone’s name will make it show up in their feed. Overusing this could be considered spamming by the recipient, so don’t go overboard.

Helen Overland, Director of Search Engine Marketing at Non-Linear Creations, had an interesting nugget of information about LinkedIn’s users: there are about 15 million users with an average income of $140,000.

When it comes to selecting contacts on LinkedIn, Overland suggested picking the "Lions," LinkedIn Open Networkers, who have lots of contacts and don’t mind sharing them.

One good thing about using LinkedIn is the link juice the Answer pages have on search engines. Outbound links are not "nofollowed" so they provide a boost to the linked site. Anyone with a blog or site they want noticed in search should consider participating more on LinkedIn Answers, per Overland’s suggestion.

Cindy Krum of Blue Moon Works said MySpace can be a major boost to someone’s online efforts. It can also be a major pain, due to the management needed for friends joining a profile, possibly with offensive pictures from their profiles.

Likewise, the blogging and chats need responses and participation, adding to the demands of a MySpace profile. But Krum cited Flying Dog Brewery as a success story, as the company has kept its edgy, Hunter S. Thompson-worshipping persona up to date on the site.

(Krum sees it as a success story, but to us it looks like any other MySpace profile, with the usual chaos in play, and the sparse participation by MySpacers in leaving comments. Krum says it’s working for Flying Dog; we’re always in favor of little breweries doing well, so good for them. – David)

WebProNews Video anchor Kara Ratliff contributed to this report.

It’s all about traffic, and even the temporary after-glow of a server-melting influx of visitors will help in the long run. Rebecca believes traffic from that rush, though temporary, should help boost long-term traffic afterwards.

Getting the attention of the social media audience means being clued in to what is current. Rebecca suggested looking at Digg, Google Trends, and industry peers as potentially solid resources. Delving into authoritative, related blogs could be a gold mine of ideas too.

Brent Csutoras suggested the ever-popular idea of lists as an avenue to attract the social media crowd. They don’t always have to be a top ten, and they don’t always have to be positive lists, either.

Lists should be numbered, with simple, strong, focused points for each item. The viewer should benefit from the titles of the list just as much as the descriptions.

The how-to article has proven popular too. It shouldn’t be a massive, lengthy block of text, and in a time where images, audio, and video can be placed online easily, people expect more out of a how-to than an endless stream of words.

Cameron Olthuis of Factive Media reiterated the importance of categorizing one’s linkbait; tagging accurately helps here, too.

When reaching out to the social media crowd with a submission, it’s important to target it to a receptive crowd. The offbeat approach can work, as Cameron referenced the online game he helped make, Search Engine Smackdown, where the player could pummel search geeks like Google’s or Yahoo’s co-founders.

The referee will look familiar to SMX Social Media attendees, as it is none other than conference organizer and panel moderator Danny Sullivan.

WebProNews Video anchor Kara Ratliff contributed to this report.

SMX Goes Social

The SMX Social Media conference will focus on social media marketing and on social media search engines and how to reach communities at social media sites. The event will also examine how social media sites such as Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpod, Reddit and others are appealing to a new and growing audience that wants to find information based on community interests, voting and sharing.

Some of the highlights include: Social Media Marketing Essentials

Linkbait – Chumming for Traffic on Social Media Sites

Extra! Extra! The Social News Sites

A Marketer’s Guide to Social Bookmarking & Tagging

Effectively Leveraging Social Networking

Evangelist – The Marketer’s Role in SMM