WebProNews

At the SMX Social Media event in New York, Liana Evans, Director of Internet Marketing, KeyRelevance, and Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-founder, SEOmoz advised marketers to fish where the fish are.

And that fish are in "microcommunities," vertical or specialty sites with social networking features. Because these communities are already focused on a very specific topic, they're more likely to respond to a targeted marketing message.

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.