Best way to kickstart a community / social networking site?

Does anybody have any advice for how to kickstart a website thats community driven. When you have no members on a site thats driven by user created content its not a very interesting place to be so I would want to make a big initial push to gather momentum.

I know that creating your own users and posting content from them is a tactic that a lot of people use ( especially for forums ). Does anybody have any other tips or tricks that would be worth employing?

Thanks

 

Fake profiles for dating websites i guess.
Try to make atleast some active members: friends, family, etc.
Try advertising a little bit.
Gather valid emails during registration
There is an option to include a little chat box on the front page of your website, to make people stay on the site.

Keep me updated with your website

 

Run a contest to encourage signups and participation.

 

Articles Articles Articles!
Take a point of view on a question that your targeted social group cares about. Write a provocative article. Post on ezinearticles.com - watch the traffic come on. Rinse and repeat

 

If you ever wanted a successful social network you need to do advertising. You would need atleast $5,000 to $10,000 and utitlize PPC\CPM\CPA marketing with all the different ad networks available. You must spend money to make money. I've never seen one social network become huge with spending money on advertising, this includes myspace, facebook, etc.

 

try out Adwords image ads on the content network, you might be able to pull off some very cheap clicks and get some signups.

 

Thanks everybody for the advice! Some great tips in there. I'm not afraid to spend a few quid to try and get it off the ground. I'm not loaded with cash though... In my previous experience with adwords I found myself spending an awful lot per click, maybe my keywords needed streamlining. Besides Adwords can anybody recommend an ad network that provides good value for money for the advertiser.

I like the contest idea and the other suggestions as well. Any other ideas are appreciated.

 

What's your target group, nialler?

 

I refuse to spend more than .06-.07 cents per click on Adwords

Look into the less mainstream keywords and go deeper. Then build a landing page just for Adwords, to make it happy. It's easy to get cheap clicks, just as long as your page and site are relevant.