Eric Enge at Search Engine Watch adds a fresh breath of air to the conversation on community-based marketing. More and more people are finding that bigger doesn't mean better.

While much of the recent focus on social media marketing centers on the big social sites, such as Digg, StumbleUpon, and del.icio.us, search marketers would be smart to spend some time learning about micro communities.

Unlike the larger general-purpose sites, the traffic from a micro community will be vertically focused on your niche, which makes for a big bonus. While these communities get the label of "micro", some of them are not really so small at all. You can get tons of useful traffic from them by matching the nature of your content to the right community.

I say, let's just stop calling these communities "micro." These are the true communities that people need to think about. As for sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, etc., it's better to think of these as communities of communities. It's a lesson that's being learned all around the business world, including eBay, which, as I recently posted, has decided to break out its own communities.

Technorati Tags: Search Engine Watch, Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, eBay