As participation marketing continues to gain traction as the most effective way to market a website, niche social networks are emerging as a crucial part of that strategy. While Facebook and Twitter can play an integral part in social media campaigns, they don’t always have the best targeted users and groups. Whereas, niche social networks, like cork’d and Social Workout, provide highly targeted communities for marketers.
Although we spent a great deal of time finding and reviewing each niche social network, we know we probably missed some. If we’re missing a niche social network that you think belongs on this list, let us know @raventools and we’ll check it out.
Niche Social Networks
- Alcohol Updated
- Animals
- Animation
- Art & Design Updated
- Attorneys
- Coffee
- Comics
- Crafting Updated
- DIY
- Exercise
- Environmental
- Families
- Financial Updated
- Food
- Gaming
- Health Related
- Marriage
- Movies
- Music Updated
- Paranormal
- Parenting Updated
- Photography
- Reading / Books
- Real Estate & Property Updated
- Restaurant Industry
- Sewing
- Soccer
- Star Trek
- Star Wars
- Travel
- Tech
- Vegetarianism
Alcohol:
Connosr
Snooth – Snooth is the world’s largest and most comprehensive wine site, featuring millions of reviews and hundreds of thousands of wines. With the slew of cutting edge features that we have pioneered, Snooth is changing the way people buy wine.
Cork’d – Cork’d was a playground for winelovers. Winelovers could review, share and discuss wine in a fun, interactive way. Users can rated wines they’ve tasted, kept track of wines they’d like buy and learned more about wine. They also interacted and shared their favorite wines, wineries and grapes with their drinking buddies. Unfortunately, this social network reached the bottom of the bottle and has closed up shop for good.
Animals:
Birdpost
Animal Social Network – Animal Social Network is a social network for animal owners so they can share about their pets and favorite animals! Update: This site is no longer available.
My Cat Space – A free cat and kitten lovers’ online social community for all cat breeds, created exclusively for cats, kittens and cat lovers to share cute cat photos, blogs, videos, pals, cat tips, funny cat stories and more. Update: This site is no longer available.
My Dog Space – A free dog and puppy community for all dog breeds – because our dogs and puppies deserves a My Space too! Update: This site now redirects to a dating website.
Dogster – Dogster.com is your one-stop resource for dog and puppy information. We have adorable profiles of puppies and dogs with photos, videos and diaries.
Fuzzster – Where our fuzzy pets can meet other fuzzy pets and owners! Invite your friends and their fuzzy pets to join, and meet other interesting people with pets just like you.
Dog Network – Dog Network is your home for all things relating to your dog. Whether you’re looking for advice on how to care for your dog or are looking for new friendships with other dog owners, this will become easily accessible by joining the dog network.
Wagger – Wagger is the international social networking site for all dogs, pedigree or crossbreed, and for their loyal and faithful human companions. Wagger allows the 21st century dog to keep track of their friends from the park, fellow competitors at shows and family around the world.
UnitedCats – Unitedcats helps you communicate with other cat-owners from around the world and take better care of your cat.
Animation:
Art & Design:
Visual Progression
My Art Space – myartspace is the premier online venue for contemporary art. myartspace is an online community with more than 50,000 artists, collectors, students, teachers, gallerists, curators, critics and art appreciators across the world. UPDATE: This myspace influenced site is no longer available.
deviantART – The world’s largest online community of artists and art-lovers. deviantART lets you explore over 80 million original works of art, exhibit your artwork to an audience of over 11 million members, set up a profile, create galleries, and build a fan base, communicate, collaborate and learn from artists from over 190 countries, and make money selling your art in the deviantART Shop.
Behance Network – Behance researches the most productive creative people and teams in the world, and then translates this knowledge, through the power of design, into products and services that help push ideas forward.
Attorneys:
Lawlink
Coffee:
Coffeenatic
Barista Exchange – the world’s premiere online community for the specialty coffee industry.
Barista Connection – Our goal is to connect the many layers of the specialty coffee industry, provide information and tools to advance the craft of the barista and create a place where you can voice your opinion. Update: This online coffee shop is closed.
Comics:
Comic Network
Crafting:
Etsy
Art Fire – ArtFire, your home to buy and sell handmade items designed by artisans from around the globe.
Get Crafty – Home of the craftistas.
Crafters Community – Christmas Crafts and Holiday Crafts. Free Craft projects. Crafts for kids, sell your crafts, learn a new craft. Fun crafts, activities, resources and more…
SuperNaturale – SuperNaturale is an independent site dedicated to the Do It Yourself culture in all its glorious forms. From simple afternoon home improvement projects to radical lifestyle choices- we love them all.
Knitting Network – The Knitting Network is a social networking website designed to be used specifically by knitters. Here you will be able to connect with like minded individuals from across the globe. Update: This community is no longer available.
Ravelry – Ravelry is a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools, and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration.
DIY:
Ready Made Mag
Instructables – Instructables is a web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others.
Exercise:
Daily Mile
Daily Burn – DailyBurn is the fastest-growing diet and fitness tracking site on the web.
As Fit As A Butcher’s Dog – As Fit As A Butcher’s Dog is a fitness and wellbeing site for everyone, of any fitness level, in any part of the UK to meet like-minded people to exercise with. Update: This community is no longer available.
Yoga Mates – Yogamates.com is the Web’s premiere online yoga community, bringing yoga off the mat and onto the internet.
Yoga Journal – We are proud to present yogajournal.com–an interactive, in-depth, yoga community website.
Fitizens – Fitizens.com is the internet’s first social marketplace developed exclusively for Fitness Experts to connect to Fitness Enthusiasts. Update: This community is no longer available.
Social Workout – Eat.Sweat.Blog is the fourth Social Workout challenge, and the first ever focused on healthy eating.
Environmental:
Change
Edenbee – Edenbee is an online community of people who believe a little innovation can make a big difference to combat climate change. Update: This community is no longer available.
Green Voice – We believe that it doesn’t take a huge organization to do huge things. Change happens thanks to small groups making a tangible difference to local problems. Awareness is raised by inspiring individuals speaking passionately about their concerns. You are those people.
WiserEarth – Helps the global movement of people and organizations working toward social justice, indigenous rights, and environmental stewardship connect, collaborate, share knowledge, and build alliances.
Families:
Famiva
My Family – No matter how far away your family members are, everyone can stay connected by sharing photos, videos and stories from life’s most important events.
Financial:
Tipd
Social Picks – SocialPicks is a community where stock investors exchange ideas and track performance of financial bloggers.
Stock Pickr – It’s like the financial news with all the news stripped out.
Bizzlo – Bizzlo.com is the world’s first social bookmarking site for business and investing. Bizzlo.com allows investors to submit stories and investment ideas, comment on public filings or form groups based on particular investment styles.
Meet Pips – MeetPips.com is a community for forex traders who wish to become more disciplined and consistently profitable. Create and share your trade journal, monitor your trade performance, meet and learn from other traders – all for free!
Fresh Pips – FreshPips.com helps you unearth and share interesting and useful forex news and research handpicked from the web by forex traders, from the biggest news sites to little known blogs.
AskPips – AskPips.com is an online community where you can ask and answer questions on any forex topic.
Food:
Group Recipes
Bake Space – We’re a grassroots online community where people from around the world gather to share recipes, build new friendships, learn from one another and express their passion for all things food-related.
Food Candy – FoodCandy is conversational like eGullet or Chowhound, but it doesn’t take itself as seriously. FoodCandy discussions are also in rich full color with pictures and videos if you like.
Nibbledish – Nibbledish is your gastronomic hub where every visit will bring inspiration and a rumbling belly…
Gaming:
UGame
Gamer Vision – a video game community for like-minded gamers with user-generated gamer video game reviews, news, previews, blogs, groups, and forums.
Raptr – Raptr is a social network that gives gamers a place to connect with one another over the games they frequently play.
Government:
GovLoop
Heath Related:
Diabetic Connect
iMedix – iMedix is a free website that helps you find and share health information.
Inspire – Inspire connects patients, families, friends, caregivers and health professionals for health and wellness support. Inspire works with trusted health partners to build safe and secure health and wellness groups.
Care Pages – CarePages websites are free patient blogs that connect friends and family during a health challenge.
My Hope Space – MyHopeSpace.com offers cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, friends, family members, and their support network an easy way to communicate and share their stories.
Ozmosis – The Trusted Physician’s Network, where good doctors go to become great doctors.
iMed Exchange – VitalSigns is an exclusive iMedExchange physician resource and blog digest of actionable news and events that impact the bottom line of physicians.
Marriage:
Married Life
Movies:
Flixster
Music:
Muso City
Red Karaoke – The largest singing social network. Have fun singing and meeting people like you.
Paranormal:
MyPara
Supernatural Connections – Supernatural Connections is a free social networking community for those interested in the supernatural, the paranormal or any type of unusual phenomena.
Global UFO Space – This project is intended for everyone who is interested in paranormal phenomena (UFO, ghosts, crop circles and so on).
Parenting:
Parents Connect – At ParentsConnect we don’t believe that parenting is a science. There’s no one way or right way to do it. So while we might not have all the answers, we can try to support you and help make your life a little easier.
Minti – Whether you are a parent of your first newborn baby, your teenage grandchildren are becoming difficult to understand, or you are planning a child and want to get a better idea what you can expect, Minti has the answers.
Got Kids Network – GotKidsNetwork is a private place to connect with parents and share your lives. Finally, a social network built by and for Parents!
Photography:
My Shutter Space
Reading / Books:
Good Reads
Library Thing – LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. You can access your catalog from anywhere—even on your mobile phone.
Shelfari – Shelfari is the premier social network for people who love books. Create a virtual shelf to show off your books, see what your friends are reading and discover new books – all for free!
Real Estate & Property:
The Flipping Pad – We want to encourage real estate investment in ways that are sustainable for the community, the environment, and of course your own finances… Talking, sharing and communicating were immensely helpful when we got started.
Trulia Voices – Trulia Voices is a community where you can get advice and share your knowledge with local experts.
Restaurant Industry:
Fohboh
Sewing:
Burdastyle
Quiltropilis – for sharing quilting photos, sewing & quilting forums to discuss quilting & other projects, classified sections, a publishing section for articles, electronic quilt pattern postcards, personal email and your own personal home page!
Pattern Review – Helping you sew smarter every day.
Soccer:
Footbo
Ole Ole – From the pitchside to the pub, dressing rooms to chat rooms, there’s one place you can go to get everything football. Where you can rant about a bad call. Get the latest scores and game rundowns from those who were there.
Star Trek:
Star Wars:
Star Wars
Tech:
Picky Site
QBN – In it’s sixth year in operation, QBN has focused at curating, and documenting visual communication while building communities of the designers that are creating it.
Travel:
Mister Contact – Meet people interested in traveling with you.
Wayn – WAYN is a lifestyle and travel social network connecting you with like-minded people wherever you are and whatever you’re up for doing.
Vegetarianism:
Vegetarian Passions
Vegan Force – A place for vegans to network.
Vegan World – A site for vegans and vegetarians to meet like minded people.
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Great post “The Ultimate List of Niche Social Networks”, the link of My Shutter Space is not working.
Excellent list, thanks for posting. It’s just missing some property/real estate social sites (if there are any). Some of the other social sites will come in handy thought for some other projects I have. Thanks
@Rafael I just fixed that. The link should be working now.
Thanks for posting such an extensive list! I didn’t realize that there were so many niche social sites. I’d love to see some travel-related sites added if anyone knows of any.
Was excited when I saw this list but disappointed at no travel section! :-/
great list. Any sports sites to add to the mix (besides soccer)?
Do you have anything based on demographics, such as 30+, seniors,
(by age), by geographic location (city, state, area of country)? I’m discovering a use need for these as well. I’m also looking for leads on communities for divorced dads.
Thanks for this list 🙂
Great list – niches are the way forward until the larger social networks like Facebook & Twitter have better search & grouping tools.
One you missed, by the way…
http://mums.chattr.co.uk – Like Twitter for pregnant women & mums
@minorthreat – Travel section now added.
@Chris – Most definitely! Look for those to be added soon.
@Kim – I’ll be looking into those. I’ve seen those categories mentioned with more frequency recently.
@Matt – When we have a category for that site, I’ll look to add it.
The ultimate list.. and you forgot to add http://www.deviantart.com/ to the art-related social networks ?
I understand, it has only been around for 9 years and there no more then 20 million people active on that website.
😐
A social network for Sewing and with 258,115 members!!! Niche is the way forward for internet marketers.
I like the alcohol (brrrp…) network. going to join it after work… brrrp.
You forgot Behance among other design communities and DeviantArt probably the most important art community.
Good!
I’d have added wiserearth (http://wiserearth.org/) for environment 🙂
rom1
Impressive list. Clearly a lot of work and time put into this. Fantastic resource.
Wow, I’m impressed with the list! It’s a wonderful source for my site about socialnetworking! (in spanish!)
Great post… I remember a niche social network on ebay for sale which I can’t see in the list, it was a community of Weed Smokers, can’t remember the name of it now… good website though. I niche social networks might be the way to go with facebook and myspace taking over.
Although there maybe a few website out there which could challenge if there built correctly. Nobody knew twitter 5 years ago, so it can still happen.
Great post – thanks for compiling! Foodbuzz is another foodie social network that has grown pretty popular (started as an ad network but a lot of people congregate there now).
WOW this is a great collection of social networks, many of which I never would have thought of! Very much appreciated.
No Matador on travel section? I have a hard time buying the “ultimate” part of the title on this one. good linkbait though… i clicked.
Wow that’s an extensive list of social sites. I was wondering if you could recommend some for the education industry. We are looking to reach university students and people interested in doing overseas education programs. Cheers
Excellent list of social network sites, thank you.
This a great list of niche social networks. I never knew that such a list existed. Thanks for sharing.
Excellent list of sites, great bit of research,Thanks for the list, very helpful.
Hi, this is a great article. I don’t know if you’re still updating the piece (or have done an updated version, but it would be great to include CraftFoxes.com for crafters who make unique handmade items.
Thanks for sharing, Jada!