EXPERTS - How Would You Launch A Social Media Site?

[RGallowitz]

Hello all

I was hoping that the social super warriors here can assist me.

We all get great ideas every now and then, but it's the rare few that take action.
I'm a person who takes action the moment I come up with something that is truly worth the risk, time and effort.

I'm a born affiliate marketer. I'm damn good at what I do, but I today I got a pretty amazing idea for a social media site and I'm thinking I HAVE to jump at this opportunity asap. The only problem is I'm struggling to put together a battle plan for launching such a service.

The social media site is geared towards my country and I'm 1000% sure that it will get a lot of response if it gets enough exposure.

Social media is big...and if you are going to launch a social media site it needs to make an impact right from it's launch.

That's where I am stuck.

Every now and then I see blog aggregation services, social dating sites and content driven social sites launch with big impacts. I mean, they launch the stuff so quickly and with a bang!!

How can I go from setting up a social media site to launching it without it being a ghost town right from the start??

Most of the variables will be in place except for one.

1. Awesome idea
2. Awesome site
3. It opens to the public
4. ?????? - now what?

Do any of you have a strategic approach to launch a social media site so that I don't have to rely on spending thousands to advertise such a free site? I mean, social media sites don't rely on heavy advertising. It's all word of mouth right? (I might be wrong that's why I'm asking)

Is there any methods I can use to get the word out as quick as possible?

Regards
Reinhardt

[RGallowitz]

So I guess we don't have social media start-up experts here? ;-)

[getsmartt]

I think you missed the all important step, in you list it would be

2.5 the limited beta introduction, with tons of hype and limited amount of invitations sent by beta members.

[getsmartt]

If you think about it, it isn't limited at all. It was an integral part of the feedback loop to cause massive growth quickly.

I agree that was why I mentioned it, it is a significant reason for the growth of several of the web 2.0 commodities.

[RGallowitz]

Some very good info here. I like it!!

Now obviously it's super easy to implement tell a friend scripts and viral components to escalate things faster, BUT what about start up?

Where to I get my hands on like a thousand people?

Radio or something?

I was thinking of launching an ad campaign (both social online and offline ads) so that people can fill in their info on a landing page and when the site launches, mailings go out to them?

[getsmartt]

Originally Posted by RGallowitz

Where to I get my hands on like a thousand people?

You don't need a 1000 people (at least not right away). You need a couple of high profile bloggers that will honestly hype your product, you need to get a positive pull on slashdot and techcrunch. Of course Digg and Redit. If you can pull enough positive attentinon there you will have people begging to get into your beta program.

[RGallowitz]

Is it a smart idea to announce a beta stage for a social site? Can't a random few people test the system?

[getsmartt]

Reinhardt,

You are missing the point. When these web 2.0 companies open their beta programs, most of the testing has been done. The exclusivity of the "beta" program just builds upon peoples' needs to be part of the elite. "one of the first", "on the cutting edge"

Then if the program is good and they start telling their friends, offering "invitations" to the beta program, it has a snowball effect.