Tired of your existing social networks?

Today I received an invite to join Plurk (http://www.plurk.com/). It is (another) social network. I am already on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and diving into Twitter. I get updates from Plaxo, even though I still haven't joined.

My first thought was, 'Oh no, another social network to join, to have to update, to make friends etc...'

Then I saw: Tired of your existing Social Networks?

What did that mean? Am I sick of seeing my old high school friends and friends living in other towns on Facebook? Am I tired of getting ongoing updates from Twitter. Are my LinkedIn connections no longer serving my best interests?

How far do I need or want to fling myself in social networking? Before I even gotten my teeth into one social network, I can start all over in another.

There are more services like Plurk out there, for instance Ning (http://www.ning.com/) , which 'lets you discover and create new social networks for your interests and your passions'.

Exposure is very important for marketing, and the broader the exposure, especially for niche markets and products, the better. But how far and how much do we invest of ourselves. Can we make assumptions that most of our audience is already in the dominant social networks, and it is just a matter of directing our efforts to them. Or are there more untouched oases beyond the well known social media?

Vertical vs. Horizontal
Like many marketing considerations, this feels like 'vertical vs. horizontal'. Do I invest my time vertically and become well entrenched in leading social mediums, establishing a presence, following and even a brand. Or do I branch out horizontally into more and more networks (they are appearing every day).

Next killer app?
Maybe that will be the next killer app: maintain a presence and keep your updates fresh across the entire social media frontier from just one application.