How can i promote a social networking site?

So I actually had my own similar question posted, didn't realize that there were already similar questions asked.

Reading through everybody's suggestions, I've done the large majority of them heh, sadly still haven't gotten out of the 700 uniques/day range - how to get to the next level?

My site is YUNiTi - it has been live for about a year and a half now. When we first launched, we spread quickly through MySpace (we were the first networking site to have an import feature) - however, when MySpace started using captcha's for messages, it slowed us down a good amount.

We have features that no other networking site has, as all code is written from the ground up, not using some common engine.

A lot of the suggestions here are good (spreading through other social networks, making features no one else has, press releases, etc.), but it seems none of them have really been able to catapault our networking site to really spread.

Any other ideas?

 

You may wanna read this post:
- http://andrewchen.typepad.com/andrew_chens_blog/2007/04/10_obvious_stra.html
- http://andrewchen.typepad.com/andrew_chens_blog/2007/05/adwords_is_not_.html

Excellent insight view!

As you see, he says about Tagged.com at some point...how they put you to tell to your friends on Yahoo or Hotmail about Tagged even before you finish registering...

 

Wasn't able to click your links, but saw you mentioned about importing/inviting friends from hotmail and such.

This is also something we've done - when users register, they are taken to a setup wizard where they can import their friends from AOL/hotmail/gmail/yahoo/mail.com/etc.

It seems like I've pretty much tried every trick in the book that has worked for everyone else (sometimes even before everyone else), yet none seem to take off!

 

Because most of these days money makes the rules, is hard evey day and every day to star new community forums or sites, because you don-t have the tools that other sites have or the engenieers that maked that sites.
I don-t want to tell you that is not possible and break down your hopes, im telling you that you need something very cooolll that you have never seen on other sites, and try to have your webserver when designing your own sites, youll never know who takes your work...it is not safe on hosting plans from internet.....

 

worldpresident: Thanks for the advice, but engineering is not hte problem - I'm an expert software engineer, and I built yuniti from the ground up - if you get on there, you'll see that it's actually better and more useable than MySpace/Facebook - the problem isn't that the site isn't good enough, the problem is letting others know about it!

 

go to other social related sites like digg and stumble upon, write articles, add banners to sites promoting your site, find forrums to post, buy traffic etc, there are many ways to help boost your site

 

Did you write to www.killerstartups.com and let them know about you? They may review your site/company...

Then also try to write to www.mashable.com too (they are dealing with social networking stuff)...they have now a special program called Sun startup review http://mashable.com/startup-review-sponsored-sun-startup-essentials/ and they might review your company too.

If you show up in these two blogs then maybe techcrunch.com and venturebeat.com and readwriteweb.com will pick up the stories (I wrote once for Readwriteweb)...

 

Yuniti is listed both on mashable and killerstartups, has been for a while - I tried writing to techcrunch to get an article there, but they didnt' show any interest.

 

Yeah, maybe techcrunch said: oh no! another social networking site ...

 

mg1313: Yuuuppp, they probably did, and I guess I don't blame them - the problem is right now there are so many sites with nothing unique about them, anything about a new networking site just becomes noise.

The tough part is that yuniti does have a lot of things that stand out, things that have never been done before - but no one notices them because as soon as I email any tech website, the first thing they see is "social networking website" and just ignore the rest.

So I guess that's why I'm on here trying to get some ideas bouncing around - I guess the question is, how does one get noticed?

 

sites like friendster and myspace got many members because they started off with a company. I think we always need to kick start with our own friends. facebook owner kicks off with his Harvard pals. Posting in facebook/myspace about your social network is a no-no. Getting a free linkback from them is good enough. They are your competitors who will finish you off when they got the chance. i tried asking my facebook friends and none of them joined.

 

Submit your social network to Find A Social Network, the search engine for social networking sites. Submission is free.

The link if you need it is http://findasocialnetwork.com

 

Well, the only reason why Facebook became famous is because they spammed people emails. Eh, it worked. But here's what you can do. Use forums with signatures, submit your site on Google, Yahoo, and etc. The invite friends should get some friends in. But make sure your website have a lot of stuff on it or else, they will visit the page and just go away. But most people became successful is by spamming

 

If you look at a site like Facebook, they started out small in a very defined niche, which was for Harvard students. Then they expanded to other colleges before opening to the general public. I would start out by catering to a small group of people who have similar interests and go from there. As with starting a forum, it is common for the owner to create fake accounts and make the forum look active. I would recommend creating 100+ accounts, or hire someone to do it.

I think finding a niche to begin with is the most important thing when trying to create an online community, it needs to feel exclusive and cater to like minded people who want to share their hobby.

 

I agree with Amedia. Starting a niche site is I think the way to go. When I looked at your site, the Yuniti.com, my first impression is, its one of the social networking site and very generic. And you did not advertise on the front page what your site is all about nor stated the unique features of your site. I also created a social networking site and uses boonex dolphin. I'm not a programmer and not an expert on community site but I always think that people look for a group where they want to belong. To see my site, check http://www.filipinofriendsterworld.com/

Since I don't have a big budget to advertise it and very busy creating blogs and maintaining other sites, I kind a neglected it so many members think that my site was a waste of time. And the most destructive of all are those nigerian spammers! They spammed most of my members so they never came back. But if I concentrated on my networking site Filipino Friendster World, I think it will go very far. Hope my mistakes will be helpful to others here.

 

Taget a specific audience first then progress to more once it becomes big. Also try to offer something others dont.

You could try creating profiles on other social networks to promote your own social network.

Maybe allow dofollow links and open the gates to webmasters looking for links to get traffic coming in.

 

Use other social networking site for it and connect your social site to other social networking site (use link of your social profile) .

 

It's not easy to make a social networking site successful, it has to offer something new and better.