How Can I Promote A New Social Network???

I have this new social networking site DiscoverMeLive.com that I thought would just blow through the roof as soon as I put it online and told a few people. I was supposed to be the next whats his name from Face you know who but it's not happening that way.

Please take a look at the site and give me any suggestions, I'm open. But please don't just flame me for the hell of it, constructive critisizm please.

Thanx.

 

There are so many social networking sites out there already and not to mention those really big SNS. I believe it's going to take a lot to be recognized. You need to be patient because it's not going to blast off right away. I suggest now that your starting out, pay some people to sign-up and put up some content. Pay for reviews to create a buzz, have those reviews dugg, stumbled, etc., and promote the site like crazy in forums. Do this consistently and you should see results.

Also a minor thing. Maybe you need a more funky/fresh/bright and lively layout to attract people to sign-up. Even if they don't know yet what the site is about they will be more likely interested if they are liking what they see initially.

 

The idea is great actually, I love it. To promote this type of sites you gonna have to work really hard; because you are already late to start.

The design is not intuitive for a social networking site. You may wanna get some professional help on that.

Best place for marketing this site would be other social networking sites.

 

Try to promote it on teen forums or some off-topic forums out there. The best would be to offer freebies such as wallpapers or graphics for people to use to get them signed up.

Also, you can always try promoting it on FB and MySpace using your own profile. Start from your friends and family members and ask for their help to spread out the words.

 

Do you try to submit it to directory ?

 

make hug profiles and connect to lot of friends..easily you will success.

 

Make a rich profile and keep in tough with your network friends..I will sure promote your social network..........avoid spamming.

 

You guys are amazing. all the suggesstion are great and giving me tons of ideas, some I knew already but needed to hear again.

That layout is the original layout since it's conception so I already planned on upgrading the look of the site. Any specific suggestions like colour, graphics etc... or maybe psycological triggers that make people feel like they really have to be apart of this? I assumed simple was the best way to go.

How about navigation, do you think the site navigates well? Play around with it a little maybe try to get lost.

Yes I have submitted to some directories but would love a list of the right ones to submit to cause there are so many

Teen forums is a fab idea and I don't know why I didn't think of that

I have also been active in the myspace forum which gets tons of traffic. My profile only had 400 views in a few months but after posting just 2 or 3 comments I got over 200 page views in under 24 hrs so imagine if I step it up.

Again Thank You I really appreciate the encouragement this was actually very hard to do and took a lot of my personal money but it's my dream. I actually think I'm in at the right time because those other guys did all the trial and error and are only now starting to become profitable. on my street on one single block there are 3 yes 3 convenience stores and all of them get tons of customers, it's all in who you like best and who makes you feel most welcome. A lot of people are getting tired of the social networking Dons and looking for something new anyway. I want this site to be built by the people ao I take your suggestion very seriously so expoect to see changes, some sooner than others (budget permitting). Love you guys

 

You can also try tying up with other budding social networking sites like Entrecard.
Create a wordpress plugin for your social networking site and tie up with a theme developer to offer it with a popular theme. The effect can be viral.
Hire prominent bloggers to review your network. You can find plenty of them in reviewme.com or sponsoredreviews.com

Let us know if these work for you.

 

your going to have a really hard time getting sign ups, but posting your offer on an affiliate network with a low CPA like .50 cents might be effective

 

O.k. everyone keep the ideas flowing this is great info.

Narsticle, what cpa network should I look at because I don't just want dead sign ups but active members?

Topsr, what did you mean by wordpress plug in?

 

O.k. I checked out reviewme and the other one and was not that impressed. On reviewme the blogs were like $3-500 per blog/review with not that many blogs focused on my niche or even social networking for that matter. And sponsoredreviews.com was cheaper but the blogs on that network aren't worth much in pr or traffic and the blogs are from anywhere in the word. So it looks like payng for a press release looks like a better place to spend my money because you get a lot more exposure to the right people and media outlets.
As for CPA, I found a few reputable companies and when I choose one I'll do a test campaigne and let you all know the results and ROI.

Thanx again for all the great advice.

 

Nice site, I wish you all the best with it.
Maybe a couple of small issues, I Joined but the activation link hasn't arrived at my email address yet, I got this on the page though .:Your activation link has been sent to your Email Address Successfully:. not sure how long it should take to get here though. It's been 30 minutes.
Also in the sign up process there was one problem, when I typed in my Postal Code I received an error message saying it has to be six numbers, mine is only four, so I added a couple of numbers.

Coincidently my social networking site finally went live last week, after 12 months in the making, lots of drama, delays and rip offs from designers and programmers occured which cost a lot of money and time.
I accept the fact now it's a bit late to enter this niche but pressed on anyway, I doubt I will ever get the money back that was put into it .... but it's a nice site anyway .

The only marketting I have done so far is a news release to http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/6/prweb1015984.htm give that a try jobfree. It has bought quite a few members in for us.

 

Thank You so much for the heads up that's exactly what I need to hear. I will get my programmers on that asap. I also did a press release with prweb too and it brought some decent traffic as well. It's not too late at all to start a social networking site, look how many channels on t.v. there are, or how many different clothing lines, or new reality tv shows there are etc.. This is the new medium and it's the ground floor, just stay focused and don't quit 5 minutes before the miracle happens.

 

A bit more feedback, the email with the confirmation link arrived five hours later.
It's a very good niche you are targetting and it should take off.
Heres a couple of suggestions, when someone plays a video or mp3 maybe you could set it so that the window it's being played in can be detached from the site so the member can continue browsing the site while it's being played.

Another thing I think would make a significant improvement to the site would be using vBulletin for the forum, I know it can be incorporated into the site as I have seen it done. The flexibility and options with vBulletin make it a perfect fit and people will continue to come back once threads and conversations are started. For example I can see that writers and artists would have a place to meet and some serious discussion could take place. As it stands now the forum is dead and has no visual appeal.
My site is the same, vBulletin was supposed to have been incorporated into it but the programmers took a short cut and installed a rubbish forum without my knowledge. This will be rectified soon.

I hear what your saying about different tv channels etc and fully agree, it's just that I'm frustrated that Myeeos wasn't completed 12 months ago when it was supposed to have been done. Back then it was a perfect time to step into the niche, Facebook wasn't as established and Myspace was pissing people off with changes they made.
I'm not about to give up though, now the site is live it's just a matter of promoting and improving it.

 

I signed up to myeeos, it's really cool. I love the look and you can do so much but I think it might overwhelm some newbies to social networks, nothing negative to say about it though. just keep the site alive and you'll see because I was clicking through a list of the top social networks and alot of them are parked domains now and not even running so competition is none. I thought Hulk Hogan was gonna be champ forever and no one could ever knock Mike Tyson out. I'm slowly starting to get sick of facebook and it's starting to feel like an idle waiste of time, great for getting in touch with people though and making announcements.

My site is about getting people actually discovered and providing quality content and allowing users to sell thier content through us and take the majority of the profits unlike other companies. I heard Kid Rock is boycotting itunes because they rape your profits like traditional record companies. I plan on giving the artist 80% and we take only 20% if they sell lets say one of thier songs that's getting internet buzz for $0.99 and they sell a 100,000, that's $80,000 on one single and 100,000 ain't even close to a gold record. So I want people to be able to make a living from my site whether they stay independant or get signed and that goes for painters, photographers, writers, directors etc... And when the site blows up a little I'm gonna court the major labels, movie companies, art gallaries etc... to come to my site to search for new talent. so the users can not only win the monthly prize money but they can sell thier content or get discovered by a major company, it's a win, win, win for my members. And that's what I wanna stay focused on as my little niche, getting talented people discovered and helping them make a good living doing so and keeping the viewers constantly entertained with quality content.

I have a great team of programmers so those problems you mentioned are usually fixed within 12 hrs of me reporting it. As for the email coming 5 hrs later I don't know if it's the site or the host/server so I'll get them to check on that

Whats the dif between vbulletin and the forum that I have, I thought a forum was just a forum?

I'm looking into CPA and coreg as an alternative so I'll keep you all updated with that and if the ROI is worth it.

This month I awarded the first winner with the most votes so I asked them to send a pic of them with thier check so I can post it on the site for others to see that you do actually get your winnings. Also I need to contact some sponsors so I can have a few contests and giveaways like an ipod touch for the first ten members with 100 friends in thier profile etc...

Again thanx for the ideas and I'll will share what ever I can with you guys and maybe it can help some of you on your sites.

p.s. Cyclops, what is your budget like? Did you get funding from investers or are you funding it yourself because really my problem is not the ideas, it's the money. I'm getting an investor ready business plan together, any suggestions when asking people you don't know for like 5 mill. If I had money, promoting the site and getting it known would be no problem for me cause I've got ideas for days, I'm just here looking for some ideas in BUM marketing to start. I've got tons of offline marketing ideas, just need some money to hire some people etc...

 

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this but it sounds interesting, can you explain it a little better please?

Thanx, jobfree77

 

what about www.magicalhugs.com

give me few ideas too.

sam

 

Apparently using Craigslist can be a good way to promote a site like DiscoverMeLive, there is a Forum section there for musicians which might be a good place to start. I don't know how to use that site though, it really confuses me
Twitter can also be used for promotional purposes, here is a guide to using Twitter http://www.buzzblogger.com/a-comprehensive-guide-to-twitter/

To answer your other questions jobfree77 ..... well I was one of the investors for Myeeos but got scammed by the developer, however another investor and myself got together and took over the project hoping to finish the site and then maybe get at least some of our money back.
We are incorporating an affiliate program into the site where members will receive back a percentage (50/50) of the advertising revenue from the ads on there profile pages. From the information we have gleened from the advertising stats so far it looks like a win win for us and the members.

Finding investors is via the internet is going to be hard if not impossible, the person who scammed me (and quite a few other people) was a prominent member here on DP with a good reputation at the time. He's since been banned.
Trust online has gone out the window, there is just so much scamming happening.

 

I thought prepopulating is necessary, though not advisable! Yeah, I have tried to get leads to one such social site OG - Ourglobes.com. Whomever visited that site (115 members at that time) came back to me and asked to with whom we socialize....few members. So on that regard hire a programmer from freelance sites and get 1000 profiles made first. Then start promoting the way all folk told here... you will have people joining. Have some bullentins,blogs, videos etc.
Details of freelance sites can be obtained from my blog in second signature link.

Good Luck