What are some good methods for promoting a new social network using social networking media?

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Stahl on March 3, 2010 at 12:25pm

Blog and You tube to your target audience.....if you can appeal to that emotional connection in a way they can relate thats the begining. Blogs are viral in nature, loaded with the keywords and phrases that speak to your cause written well spread like wild fire.

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Permalink Reply by Susan Daniels on March 3, 2010 at 8:48pm

Thanks. That is good advice.

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Permalink Reply by A.Michelle Blakeley on March 3, 2010 at 12:35pm

First, understand that developing a social network takes time. Unless you have a feature or content that takes it viral, it is a work in progress.

What makes your social network so special? It is interactive, informational, etc.? With so many to choose from, why should someone choose yours over another? Does your social network fill a need? How does a members participation in the network help them? A social networking site is still a product/service and you should market it as such.

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Permalink Reply by Susan Daniels on March 3, 2010 at 8:49pm

That's good information. I appreciate your taking the time to reply.

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Permalink Reply by Susan Daniels on March 3, 2010 at 8:49pm

Oh my! I belong to so many social networks and that's primarily how I have gathered my members so far...but, now I am off unemployment and back to work full time, so I need to streamline. :)

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Permalink Reply by Carol Ellison on March 3, 2010 at 4:11pm

I'd say spread yourself around a little more! And I mean that in a good way! LOL!
Join more networks and then be sure to note your URLs for your other networks
as you go a long. This way, you should develop a good following!

It's work a shot!

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Permalink Reply by Yen-Hong Tran on March 3, 2010 at 4:15pm

appeal to emotion, be informative and engaging.

blog and youtube, great video content is what can work.

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Permalink Reply by Susan Daniels on March 3, 2010 at 8:50pm

Appeal to emotion. This I have heard more than once...I need to incorporate this.

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Permalink Reply by Dr Bruce Hoag on March 4, 2010 at 3:21am

Dear Susan,

You ask a good question: one that I wish a lot of other people would ask.

The definition of a "social network" is so loose that it's probably impossible to determine just how many there are. Let's just agree that there are hundreds if not thousands. That means that in order to get people to use yours, you have to demonstrate that there's greater value to them in doing so than in using some others that they probably already use.

I've lost track of the number of social networks to which I belong. If people want to invite me, chances are good that I will accept. But, which of them do I nurture? Only a handful. Why? Mainly because they already have the market penetration that I think will give me the most in return for the effort I put in. You won't be surprised when I tell you that I use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ecademy, and soon (I hope) YouTube.

Stephen Covey talks about two perspectives that people tend to adopt. He calls one the Circle of Influence and the Circle of Concern. The first Circle refers to all those things over which we have control; in other words, what we can do. The second Circle refers to all those things over which we don't have control; in other words, what we can't do. He goes onto say that whichever one you concentrate on will grow. If you think about what you can do, then over time you'll find you can do more; but, if you think about what you can't do, then you discover that you are able to do less and less about whatever you happen to be thinking about.

Now, let's apply this to the problem of promoting a new social network. I'd like to suggest that you think about why you started it. What was the purpose? What are you offering to members that they can't get from the dominant players? How easy is it for people to make a contribution in your new network and have it automatically post to the others? You see, when you ask questions like this, it empowers you to create benefits for those who sign up; and the more people feel that your social network helps them to reach their goals, the more likely they are to use it. But, the benefits have to be substantial because of the number of existing social networks and because of the difficulty of managing the ones in which most are members.

One thing you might think about is merging with another social network. It would suddenly increase the number of members, and two heads are better than one. I don't know anything about your network, but one that you might consider is called GloVilla (http://www.glovilla.com). Naturally, there's likely to be some overlap in the members; but you'd expect that from active social networkers.

Any social network is, of course, a service; but, it's also an online product. How do you promote a new product? Well, you might build a list first. How do you do that? One way is to write a lot of articles about your topic of expertise for Ezines. I had a look at the list of their top contributors. The number one guy has written more than 22,000. Yes. You read that correctly. Imagine how much traffic he gets on his site! I Googled his name and got 55,000+ returns. So, even if you did only this one thing, you could drive a lot of traffic to your site.

That leads us to your site design. Whatever else people do when they get there, they need to know it's for them. In other words, you have to give them a compelling reason to stay there because we all of us have a propensity to move on very quickly. You have seconds to get their attention and then to keep it. A tall order indeed. The web designer that I recommend is Alberto Tacconi (http://www.tacconipromotion.com). He's a Swiss Italian, but his English is pretty good. He designed my site (http://www.p-advantage.com), so if you like the look of it, then you should contact him.

Because Alberto is more of a designer than a coder, I had someone else write the code. For this, I recommend Scott Whitehead at Zest City (swhitehead@zestcity.com). His prices were by far the best of anything that I'd come across, and he was willing to use the kind of code that I wanted. Others who I'd approached just weren't interested in doing what I told them to do.

So, there you go. Lots to think about. If you want to bounce your ideas off me in the future, then feel free to contact me (b.hoag@p-advantage.com). Email is probably better than asking a question here because the response box on this site is so tiny.

Cheers, Bruce

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Permalink Reply by Susan Daniels on March 6, 2010 at 1:03pm

You are a wealth of knowledge. Thank you so much! I had not previously heard about the concept of merging with another social network. Very interesting.

Warmly,
Susan

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