Social Media Network for Gun Owners

It seems that while I was in Massachusetts shooting guns and generally being awesome that there was a little bit of a brouhaha.  I saw the beginnings of it on Tuesday before I left, but after that I was only able to keep up with it via emails and the occasional check on my Blackberry tablet.  Barron probably has the most comprehensive coverage of how things went down and the resulting fallout.  However, there were quite a few things about what happened that are still interesting and require comment.

The first thing I really want to talk about this whole concept of creating “a social network for gun owners” and why it’s, well, stupid.  There are approximately 40 million gun owners in the country, and there are about 300,000,000 people in the country.  But see, here’s the first problem with creating “a social network for enthusiast x”; because it doesn’t just have to be guns.  There isn’t a “social network for car lovers” or a “social network for fans of Season 1 of Cheers” for a good reason.  The issue is that gun nuts, car lovers, Cheers fans, aviation enthusiasts and pretty much everyone else have other hobbies outside of just the one thing that you’re trying to identify them as.  The point of social networks is that it’s supposed to be the shallow end of the pool.  Specialty sites that are targeted on a specific market are the deep end of the pool.  The idea is that I can use Facebook to find people who like guns and then connect with them on a more meaningful level if our interests run parallel.  We don’t need a social network for gun owners any more than we need one for Dodge Charger drivers.

That covers my thoughts on the product itself, which now leads us to the execution of a product like that.  Let’s say that you decide to try and create a social network for gun owners anyway.  You need to understand the landscape that you’re getting in, because the shooting sports already have a robust online community.  I’ve been a member of The Firing Line since 2005, I’ve been blogging since 2006.  That’s a long time, and I’ve watched the online community grow and change over the past 7 years.  There are people that have been doing this even longer than I have; the assertion that there isn’t an online community for gun owners shows a remarkable light of insight.  Sites like AR15.com provide a valuable resource for new shooters with a relatively low bar of entry; and there are plenty of high end blogs and forums as well if people want to get deeper.  In fact, the online gun community is quite robust, and will provide a person with exactly what they’re looking to get out of.  Want some general information and specs on guns?  We have that.  Would like to see a roundup of what the gun bloggers are talking about, mixed in with a little humor?  Got that too.  The various sites that serve the needs of the shooter have evolved and changed over time; some provide excellent info for newbies, some take a higher level approach, and that’s good.

The other thing about the online gun community is that it’s all relatively well connected, and that’s where we saw the biggest fail.  See, if you’re going to create an online community for gun owners, showing up and telling Blog X that he sucks is a really bad idea.  In the last couple of days of the brouhaha I saw some pretty vile insults directed towards people that are my friends, and whose opinions and friendship I place a lot of value on.  Showing up on the scene and saying “look at me I’m so cool and ya’ll suck” is a pretty good way to get kicked in the ass.  I actually wish I’d had more free time last week to properly address that, but the point is that if you’re trying to create a new niche in the online gun community, or carve an entirely new community; it’s probably a bad idea to spend a whole week insulting the existing community.

The last point about blogs and gun bloggers I want to make though is that I can say with 100% certainty that blogs are hugely important to the actual firearms industry.  I spent most of SHOT in meetings cutting deals to put ads on the sites of prominent bloggers in the industry, and last week we started cutting checks to blogs that have been running those ads.  If you think for a second that blogs aren’t important then you’re so out of touch that there isn’t a whole lot we can do for you.

After going over all the data and everything that happened this weekend, I can’t think of a better example of how to not get involved in the online firearms space.  Here’s the entire post condensded into bullet points to keep things simple:

• There’s no real demand for a social network for gun owners
• There is already an established online community for gun owners anyway
• Trying to establish your brand by being an a-hole to that community is a dumb plan
• The mainstream firearms industry is recognizing the importance of blogs to their marketing plans, so don’t tell me that “blogs are dead”…because they’re clearly not.

Portions of this post were originally published in a white paper on engaging online with bloggers for the firearms industry.

This entry was posted on February 27, 2012 at 10:18 and is filed under blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.