Forum Moderators: rogerd
Few questions =], I am getting ready to launch a specific niche social networking site. I've run a few successful sites in the past (up to 150k uniques in one day -- the site died slowly because I stopped adding content and working on it), but they were not social networking based, it was more of a content-tutorial based site. I am now attacking a new niche that needs work, it's untouched, and get's tons of traffic. There are a few tough competitors who have all the users, and I have never entered a field like this before. I have invested a decent penny into the project as I have faith in it's success. I believe I do have a few great selling points that will attract users, but my questions are:
1. How do I launch? (private invite, public beta, etc...?)
2. Do I launch naked (no users)
3. Marketing techniques
4. How do I attract and steal my competitors users
Any suggestions would be great, as I am completely new to running my own social networking site.
PS. It is not general like myspace, facebook, youtube. This is a specific niche, and a very good one! Thanks, for any suggestions and help would be great!
What's the niche? If you can't disclose that until you launch, then no worries.
1. Private invite always works well to beta and work out the kinks as long as you get users to participate. I'm always up for something exclusive (hint). Don't want to go public until the kinks are worked out as you'll turn off potential long time users (remember cuil.com "launch"?).
2. Gotta launch sometime right? Might as well launch with some ghost users to salt content and participation. Also, invite your close friends and family, that always helps.
3 and 4. All traditional internet marketing techniques, but I'd be right on your competitor sites selling the virtues of your site. It's the exact audience that you're looking for (online and in your niche). That's free last time I checked.
Just my 2 cents and good luck!
zuko
but I'd be right on your competitor sites selling the virtues of your site. It's the exact audience that you're looking for (online and in your niche).
Now, how is that done?
Becoming a forum sponsor, a few hundred bucks allowed us to place a signature to a our site at the bottom of each relevant, helpful and on-topic post that we made - without annoying the forum owners.
Joining sites that are in the same niche but more general in nature and registering with the name of the domain as a handle. These sites did not allow signatures or direct links. Again, being helpful in those communities is a pretty good way to get the word out. Very surprising what you can get away with on a heavily moderated top 100 website... One site invited us to become a "specialist" and tag our handle accordingly.
Use a creative approach, and above all - add value...
