How to Make Money with Your Own Social Network

Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have all proven that social networks are big money, even when the initial sign up and basic use is completely free!  The possibility to cash out on advertisers, games, products and services and so on seems endless and very tempting.  But it might be time to haul back a bit and focus on reality; unless you are incredibly lucky, it is unlikely you will be able to build something that will rival Facebook for sheer size.  However, you can build a perfectly viable social network in a niche area; a way to bring people together who share similar hobbies, worldviews or other things and make money from that.  How can you develop your own social network?

It’s not an easy task and will require at least a month or two’s worth of effort, marketing, and sometimes some knowledge of coding if you want to build one from scratch.  Fortunately, there are social network platforms and social networks scripts that you can use to build something basic.  You can also customize the platforms and scripts or even build an entire network from scratch if you have the proper training.  If you’re new to building networks, it’s probably a good idea to use and experiment with a functioning platform before diving off the deep end.  But before even starting to build the site, it’s important to do a couple of steps.

First determine what your niche is going to be and this requires careful research.  Find niches that are popular, such as dating, gaming, hobbies, pets, and family and then cross check that with things that are of interest to you.  Once you’ve determined a niche, you then have to have map out the functions that you want your social network to have.

Successful social networks have the following ways for people to connect and share:

• Ÿ  blogs
• Ÿ  forums
• Ÿ  videos (or music sharing)
• Ÿ  linking
• Ÿ  photos
• Ÿ  articles or other things that provide an interesting baseline to draw people in
• Ÿ  privacy settings
• Ÿ  personal profiles
• Ÿ  applications/widgets

Most of these things, if not all of them, are desirable to have in a successful social network and you’ll likely think of other things to add.  Research big name networks to see what functions they have and try to apply as many of them as you can to your own; after all, millions of users must know what they like!

Once you’ve mapped out what your social network will be on and what functions you will have, it’s time to choose a social network platform or script to work with or build the site yourself (or hire someone to do it for you if you have the cash).  Make sure that the end result will be attractive, easy to navigate for your users, and has plenty of security.

Once your site is live, it’s time to market it, the same way you would market any site.  While the long term goal will be to let the users add their own content, in the meantime, you have to do the legwork yourself using the same methods you would for any site: SEO, article marketing, backlinks, social networking and so on.  If you do it well, you should start getting a core of members within the first month or two and slowly you can decrease the amount of time you spend on marketing and let word of mouth do it for you.  Use this time to update, maintain and expand your social network site.  Remember-if your site breaks, no one can use it!  Attract advertisers and affiliates and promote products to your users (without being obnoxious about it of course).  Give it time and you will soon have many users and income coming in from advertisers wanting to post their things on your network plus whatever else you choose to try to sell on it.

It can be really fun and rewarding to build a social network site, but it can also be frustrating.  Make sure to do your research carefully and don’t try to do more than you’re capable of.  Keep in mind the needs of your users as well as your income desires; a balance of the two will bring you the money making success you want.