11 Ways to Market Your New Social Networking Website
Chris Bennett
“Build it and they will come,” not anymore (if that was ever
really true).
Just building a feature-filled social networking site with a sound infrastructure
is only the start of your website journey. Don’t fret, though, because
it’s an exciting journey: social networking sites are the most visited
area of the Internet. According to recent statistics from Hitwise.com,
social networking actually accounts for 11% of all web visits.
As expected, this popularity begets competition: competition to keep
your site from resembling an online ghost town and competition to find
and convert the right people for your particular niche.
The good news is that you don’t have to navigate the competitive
waters on your own. We asked Chris Bennett, friend of Elance and social
networking guru, for ways you can market your social networking website
and stand out from the competition:
1. Identify your target audience
Who are you targeting -- specifically? To help answer this question, think
about the target age, gender, interest, and geographic location of who
you want to use your new site.
Remember, social networkers are already busy on sites like Facebook,
MySpace, Digg, and others, so the average person probably won’t
add a “general” social networking site to their agenda. So,
choose a niche and identify the relevant audience so you can stand out.
Once you know who you are targeting, figure out how many people are in
your target audience and might be interested in your site. To do this,
think about keyword searches this audience might do to find sites like
yours, and then check out keyword search volume on Google and research
data on sites like compete.com and hitwise.com. You should also visit
Stumbleupon, go to groups, and find out how many people subscribe to the
group or groups related to your topic.
2. Beta test – thoroughly
Social networkers have choices, and they definitely don’t have the
time or willingness to deal with problems. So before you launch, you need
a really strong beta site that’s been tested and tested and tested.
And tested one more time for good measure. If you have the budget, consider
private or third-party testing – not only will they do a thorough
job, but they may notice problems that over time you’ve come to
ignore. The easiest way to turn off a potential customer is to deliver
a sub-par experience.
In addition testing the user experience, be sure to include server and
load testing: When sites go down, visitors are turned off and leave, most
likely for good.
Remember that social media users as a group tend to be more technically
savvy, and as a result, more likely to bail on you if they’re unsatisfied.
The bottom line is that you’ll want to have your site in top shape
before driving traffic to it.
3. Seed your site
Say you’re creating a site for interior designers and your goal
is for thousands of designers to upload photos for the community to comment
on. At launch, make sure you have tons of photos in place.
A common mistake is assuming visitors will load your content for you,
but in reality almost no visitor will commit to making that jump unless
they see other people have already done so. Think about it -- would you
as a visitor upload photos, add descriptions, and comment on other photos
when it is unlikely people will see what you’ve done?
The basic principle is that visiting a social networking site is a lot
like using a forum – if there’s no activity, you’ll
leave. So seed your site with the kind of content you want users to generate
and interact with.
How can you do this? Get a beta group to help you seed your site –
even if it’s just your friends and family. Not only will you be
seeding, you’ll also be performing additional beta tests in the
process.
4. Network to generate traffic
The key message here is that social networking requires online, not offline,
buzz generation. Get in touch with online influencers during your website's
pre-launch phase and more general blogs and PR sites post-launch.
How? Use Technorati and Google Blog Search to identify the popular blogs
that focus on your demographic. Then, after you’ve conducted beta
testing and you’re proud of your site, contact the major bloggers
and influencers in your demographic and ask them to beta test your site
prior to launch. By reaching out early, you’re showing you respect
their knowledge and you really value their feedback.
That’s a much better approach than contacting them after the launch.
Why? Most will be flattered you sought their opinion ahead of time, and
not only will you get valuable feedback, you’re more likely to be
reviewed when you do launch. Reviews and mentions by influencers help
create buzz – and buzz creates traffic.
Then notify influential blogs like techcrunch.com, mashable.com, and
killerstartups.com. Keep in mind they get tons of requests, so make sure
your pitch is to the point.
5. Consider traditional online advertising
If you have the budget, contact the large sites and forums in your demographic
that sell ad space and buy a few ads (federatedmedia.com could be a good
source). But do not delude yourself into buying just any traffic, and
don’t focus on general-interest sites even if they get huge amounts
of traffic. In the early stages of your website, you want your ads in
front of the right eyeballs – not just any eyeballs.
6. Don’t forget SEO
Getting traffic from search engines is key, right? And getting free traffic
is even better. To do this, one of the first things you’ll want
to do is identify keywords and continually optimize your site and pages
and get ranked for those words.
For example, if your niche is interior design, you’ll definitely
want to rank for terms like “interior design ideas,” interior
design photos,” “interior design community,” etc. Look
for keywords that describe the content you offer instead of products and
integrate that content into your pages. (Unless your site is devoted to
product reviews or discussions, of course.) And remember, it’s hard
to rank highly for general terms; it’s much easier to rank highly
for specific and focused keywords.
7. Participate on sites related to your niche
If there’s a huge forum or a thriving group in StumbleUpon in your
demographic, set up an account, link back to your site, and interact and
become well-known in that community and you’ll generate traffic
to your site.
When you set up your account, make your username the name of your social
site to help further brand you. Make a name for yourself – actually,
for your site – in your demographic. Here’s a guide to help
you set up a StumbleUpon account and, if you like, becoming a top Stumbler.
8. Create spokes for your hub
Set up Facebook and MySpace pages that are extensions of your site. Then
search and network with people who share your interest. Aggregating content
from your social site and placing it on your Facebook and MySpace pages
will give potential visitors a sense of what is on your main site.
You can also set up a Twitter page, with the name of your site as your
Twitter username, and tweet all day about what you’re working on
and what’s new on your site. You can also perform searches on Twitter
to find people interested in your niche. Many influential bloggers use
Twitter to alert their readers about new content – you can too.
Make sure you also link to all your Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Stumbleupon
profiles from your main site – basically, anywhere you’ve
created an account related to your brand.
9. Analyze, analyze, analyze
The key to effectively marketing your social networking site is to understand
conversions. A conversion in social networking terms is not a sale, it’s
a sign-up. (Marketing is, after all, about spreading the word, getting
the right visitors, and converting them.) A free tool on blvdstatus.com
can help you understand where visitors came from before they signed up,
whether based on a keyword, a site, or a blog.
Understanding where your conversions come from helps you determine where
to focus your marketing efforts. If a mention on a particular blog resulted
in a nice volume of sign-ups from the blog’s readers, you’re
on to something. Analytics help you determine where it’s worth spending
your marketing time.
10. Encourage your active community
Think of ways to get your community to interact with each other. The benefit
is that ever elusive ‘network effect’ – when an active
community creates buzz and word of mouth, yielding more users.
Things you should do to facilitate interaction: comment on user comments,
create contests for things like adding content, allow users to vote, and
let users submit questions.
Note: I’m sure you’ll be surprised by what can create interaction.
We work with a best-selling author who, due to time constraints, isn’t
easy for the average reader to contact. We asked site users to submit
questions they’d like the author to answer, and then the community
voted on the top ten questions. It’s so popular it’s become
a monthly feature on the site and generates an incredible amount of participation
and interaction.
11. When you reach critical mass, work on features to fine-tune
the community experience
Once the buzz from the launch dies down, new features can build new excitement,
both within your community and outside. So spend time adding features
or tools. Then contact bloggers and influencers to let them know what
you’ve done – not only will you maintain a vibrant community,
but the buzz will help you generate more new users.
****************************
Chris Bennett is the President and Founder of 97th Floor, a leading edge SEO Firm specializing in Search Engine Optimization,
Reputation Management, Social Media Marketing and Blog Optimization. Chris
has been involved with the Internet “since the days of Alta Vistas
reign, the good ol’ days when you could change your meta tags, submit
your site through Inktomi, and see your rankings improve by dinner.”
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