Today any entrepreneur with a startup (irrespective of B2B or B2C) is trying to create a social network application or building a social network of prospects/customers and struggle with the challenge - How do you grow the social network?

Getting those first few members and building momentum to attract a niche set of people to your startup or group is quite challenging - your message has to cut through all the noise and further excite your target prospect base to take the action to join and participate in your group. A good example of this is entrepreneurcommunityonline.com, which has been growing by leaps and bounds.

Some elements you can apply to your startup (or when you are building any social network group, for example a linkedin group)

1. You need to be very active participant (think of yourself as the cheerleader)


2. Invite your friends to join and participate. You need a set of early participants, (for example nobody wants to be the lonely person standing alone when they are the first person to arrive at a party)


3. Make the engagement as social as possible, members should be able to invite friends from other networks, update other social networks of changes in this startup/group easily and intutively as possible. A good example of this is how Quora enables you to share your responses on other social networks.


4. As members participate, you need to move from a cheerleader role to a moderator role and ensure discussions are focussed ( you do not want to start loosing your members)


5. Be patient, it takes time to build a focussed niche group.

What has your experience been like in getting your startup social network going?

 

About the Author

Along with being a marketing ECO advisor at Entrepreneurcommunityonline.com, Pooja (CEO Blueknee Marketing) specialize's in developing marketing strategy, competitive analysis and pricing strategies.

You can follow my regular blog at http://blog.blueknee.com or contact me via email at pooja@blueknee.com.