How do you feel about viral marketing for a social networking site?

I am working on developing a social networking site similar to MySpace or Xanga, but qith some unique things they don't really offer, such as community edited pages, collaborative book writing/story telling, etc. The site will be locked and invite only. The marketing I am planning on having is flyers distributed across college campuses and large towns in my state with propaganda like pictures and cryptic, catchy messages pointing to a website. That website will have a mailing list you can sign up for to be invited, then once you get an invite you can send out your own invites similar to GMail. This works to the site's benefit in several ways, fewer spammers and stalkers, plus less demanding on the server (since my server is not the best ATM, need money to upgrade) and the fact that user accounts will be worth much more if it is select invite only.

I have a few questions to ask to people who specilize in marketing, though. I will admit my site is not as full featured as the most popular social networking sites out there, but I honestly think I have enough to make a few people interested. I know I have already gotten emails from people asking if they could join right now. Do you think MySpace is too big to compete against, and that I should find a different niche to market my site with? Right now I am marketing it on it's ablility to let you publish content and have it be reviewed by peers, and it's awesome group system that provides everything the site offers, but privately seperated for each group, meaning you can post on the forums publicly, then in your own group, or upload a photo to a group album and it will be different than a public album, write a book with your group so you know exactly who can edit it, etc. Besides the whole "write in your blog and comment on friend's blogs" thing that is obligitory.

Also, I have tried marketing sites with just word of mouth before, and it failed miserably. Would adding physical marketing improve the results? What about campus stunts to get college kids interested? I could scale the wall of the dorm towers and throw out flyers on my way up if I had to

 

My thoughts:
1. Nobody is too big to compete against. MySpace is big. Yes. But, the social networking market is nowhere near saturated and there is definitely room for more sites with slightly different concepts. In fact, I was working on a rough draft for a new social networking site myself! I probably wouldn't have had any time until Xmas to build it though, but I definitely think that there is room for more sites. Go for it!
2. Word of mouth: It doesn't work for everyone. You will have to drive word of mouth by getting users to suggest the site to others. I like the Invite only concept. If it starts getting slightly popular, people go crazy for invites. They start posting on forums asking for invites which gives you more exposure.
3. Physical marketing will give you more value for money or value for your time in the initial stages and hitting a college with flyers is a nice idea as that's the perfect market for your product as well.

Good luck and do keep us updated!
dfsweb
P.S: Once you are happy with the site, post the URL here

 

Scale the wall in a suit, tie and briefcase. Then fold all the fliers into paper airplanes and stuff them into the briefcase. Then when you get to the top open the case and release all the planes into the crowd.

 

I'm working on one myself, do you guys think we can maybe have a little conference on Yahoo/MSN? Please PM me.

 

I think this is a great, I'd like to hear some marketing techniques more from you guys

 

If anyone wants to talk about it (like vbwiz), my MSN is thefreehunter, as is my AIM. I am still trying to figure out how I am going to work the invite system.

 

This is how I would do it:
1. Add a table called invited_users to your database with a single field called email_address
2. Every time somebody sends someone an invitation, add their email address to this table
3. On the Registration page, add a check. Only allow registration to go through if the email address appears in the invited_users table. If not, give an error message "sorry, you need an invitation ...."

Simple!

Any other queries, send me a PM or post here. I will be more than happy to help out with your project (even write a couple of scripts for you if you want). You can share the revenue with me once you start making millions!

 

Ah, I had just finished the script just before I checked this page,
What I did was similar to your idea. When they click invite, they get taken to a page that allows them to type in the email address. Once they click submit, it generates a large, random code and stores it in the database, then emails the invited user a link to domain.com/register/13375417 or whatever their code is. When they sign up, the code is crossed off in the database so it can't be used again. The invtes are tracked, and each user only gets 20 to use as they please. This keeps cruft down, and allows me to have a ton of interest but a few visitors. This way I can throw ads on the main page and not have to allow unauthorized users access to anything but the ad filled front page, while logged in users see no ads. This will help me gain money to buy a new server, which I BADLY need.

If the user registers and is was not referred through a valid code, they get blocked, allowing me to admit them if they are friends of mine or delete them if they are just random people.

 

If you were to put flyers around campus, etc, it's way more effective than e-mailing invite (IMO) because its less 'spammy' I guess. I would definitly join if I saw a flyer about a site like yours on campus!

 

The emailing the invites is mainly because once we get 50 members signed up to join the site, registration is closed for good, and you have to be invited to join. Flyers are to make people seek invites

 

I am actually working on developing a marketing campaign for a social sight but it will offer a completely different type of service.

I would strongly encourage to promote through the internet, college and other forums and do a massive press release. Flyering will not be nearly as effective as online promotion.

I can share parts of my plan with you and send you some very useful links but you'll have to PM for that.

 

Problem is, right now I am on the top Google page for several key terms on the site currently being run at my domain, which makes people come to the site. I am going to be changing domain names when the new site goes live. I know that my ads are not going to explicitly state the name of my site and exact address, and Google will be no help for a few months. Word of mouth will have to be a big factor to make the ads worth anything. Any real solution to this?

 

Why can't you redirect the existing domain to the new one??

 

Well, I would like to keep the old domain as a personal site. On my personal site I would be writing stuff that would be public as opposed to exclusive as with the other site: blogging about my life on campus and working as a tech for the school, writing short stories, etc, like a normal blog. Although maybe I could just have a link on the homepage of my new site (there is a seperate homepage if you are not logged in, so anonymous users can't see the content) saying "To see Mark's blog, click here" or something...

 

www.commdom.com

That's the site. Sign up if you want, you need approval, but it shouldn't take more than a few hours to get accepted, really.

 

The first 50 free to anyone, then invites looks kinda cheesy to me, better off inviting the first 50 or 100 people in person then going invite only or something like that.

good luck

 

Well, in reality, there is no set amount of users I will accept who sign up. The reason I am doing it that way rather than pulling in a set number and stopping accepting new members is because until January, I am stuck with a small webhost with not quite as much bandwidth as I would like to have. I want to measure how much space and bandwidth I need for so many users, to see where the cutoff point would be. If it were less than 100 people, and I invited 100 people, I would either be screwed or look like a jackass when I tell people they can't come to the site. This way, I can just say "Okay, that's been 50, no more new users" and stop, no matter if it has only been 20 or if it has been 300. I can explain away the discrepencies by saying some users got banned or deleted, or the extra users are from invites, and aren't counted in the 50 users. If I didn't do this, my webserver would fill up FAST.