Paid Social Content: Is Linqia The Beginning of a New Type of Marketing?

CEO Maria Sipka presents Linqia from Linqia on Vimeo.

How do you reach targeted communities in the mass market?

A start-up known as Linqia claims to have a solution:

"We’ve created Linqia to empower [community leaders] to nurture and grow their communities by rewarding them for sharing intelligent, genuine stories from trusted brands."

According to a Sept. 22nd, 2012 techcrunch post, Linqia "has developed a platform to deliver highly targeted “stories” to specific audiences."

Linqia claims to have identified more than 100 million unique “interest communities” reaching 1 billion “enthusiasts” and "[t]he Linqia platform helps match brands and stories to those smaller but still influential communities."

How does Linqia work? Community leaders are paid by brands for sharing "authentic" stories. Basically, Linqia allows brands to buy advertising in relevant communities that doesn't look like traditional advertising.

For example?

"The community manager, let’s say someone who runs a Facebook Group that focuses on fishing, gets a message from you, the Brand Manager at Bass Pro Shops. It’s news about a new iPhone app you’ve developed to help fishers identify breeds of fish they catch. He or she decides that’s useful information for their community and they post a message with screen shots and info about where to download the app."