Blackhat Traffic To Social Network?

[Kryptik]

I'm getting ready to launch a social networking site geared towards urban lifestyle (music, fashion, videos, etc). And I'm looking for a few good ideas on how to drive "sign-up" traffic to the website, honest or not. On the honest front I will allow contact list importing (from email and social networks) and revenue sharing on everything posted. (50%+). People can post articles, reviews, videos, etc.

What are some good shady methods to give the site a good boost? Member count, content amount and such are important. Any ideas on how to boost this? I was thinking of making a few hundred fake accounts, and having them autopost videos, articles, etc much like an autoblog would function. Of course the end result needs to be real members, posting real stuff.

 

[bumba]

if u dont mind how much are u spending to have the site build?

 

[Kryptik]

- Well we're not looking to get rich quick, but definitely not adverse to MAXIMIZING our sign-ups (which are free btw) by any method necessary. We're looking to do some contests, but what to tie it in with viral marketing.

Something like, win $5.00x how ever many people you invite and register... with something crazy in the TOS with a maximum, or there referrals have to get a minimum, type thing (sort of like the unlimited webhosting scheme).

Honestly? It's built on an open source framework and STILL cost about $12,000 much of the work was done by me as development is my forte. SEO unfortunately is not.

 

[Kryptik]

Another quick question. Perhaps there are some services from members that may be of use? Xrumer blasts? Social Bookmarking Services? PrStorm? Etc. Any suggestions here would be good. Perhaps best way to spend $500 without getting the site banned. Perhaps making articles about social networking sites, spinning and submitting to directories? I'm not sure what's appropriate to drive traffic to this type of site, vs an autoblog which is dispensible.

 

[toyo]

my suggestion is to follow ''facebook style''. Target certain schools, universities, etc - and make it seem like its exclusive to that area. FB started out as Harvard only... that way, you will build interactivity, and communication. Just spamming the site and getting random signups will not bring the site anywhere, as ppl will realize how useless the site is within <20 mins.

 

[dynamicvb]

A whitehat way would be to do a blog type contest where a referral equals an entry and draw for prizes. Then maybe some press releases or paid blog posts on the big blogs. Should bring in a good amount of traffic and get you started.

Black hat, you could create some YT vids and post them to various accounts and use something like tube increaser to pad the views and get them in front of new people.

You could also try facebook ads, but my experience has not been stellar in this area when it comes to promoting other social networks and it can get pricey in a hurry.

 

[Kryptik]

Although it's a community website, it's main focus isn't necessarily connection between users (although possible with all the standard networking tools people are used to on myspace/facebook) but mainly sharing content (pictures/videos/websites). I figure if there's lots of quality content (music videos, celebrity photos, etc) then it will do well off search engine traffic.

 

[ChrisLang]

@Kryptik

I myself lean towards the whitehat side of things. However, I am the most hated guy at Digg headquarters. But I am able to pull the entire Digg top 100 as mutauls in 30 days with my system.

I don't mess with Google, whitehat all the way there, but I do use Digg and test Digg to see how Google sees what goes on there as very positive indicators.

I signed up just now so I could post here. If you want traffic in your social site, it is easy. Enable AdSense and share the revenue with users based on their participation.

You can't give them a share of AdSense on their profile, they would frak that up by clicking their own ads and pay for clicks and trash your AdSense account.

However I don't think there is any thing against Google TOS that says you can't share with members. I have told many to do this and no one listens so why not let you benefit from the idea.

Also allow links from posts to link back to the parent and don't use nofollow. That gives value to the sites, and cash to the users. Win win by me.

Ping me if you have any questions. - Chris Lang
Author of Wickedly Evil Social Marketing Tactics

 

[Kryptik]

Yeah, as I mentioned above, revenue sharing was already on the menu. I definitely was going to do that with adsense rotations. So a large % of the time their own ads will show on their own contributions, plus I have it programmed for them to never see their own ads, and I will never see mine to help avoid click fraud all around, but I think some idiots might still think clicking will make more money and mess something up. How is it that you can rock digg so well?

 

[come2go]

Kryptik may i also ask what kind of dedicated server your using? im asking cause im planning to launch a social networking site myself

 

[Kryptik]

Quad Core Xeon, 8GB Ram, 1TB Raid 5, with Remote Raid 5 Backup.
It's on a 100Mbit connection. Should be plenty to start.

 

[alexaassassin]

Most FB users are MALE so get a bunch of people ( like, go to a high-school and post ads ) to sign up chickie accounts or oursource it but

Make sure they can do a bazillion with same email lol
Make sure they will use "believeable" photos.

 

[eskimo]

the fake profile method is the best. i just launched a new classifieds site and i posted loads of fake adverts to get the ball rolling.

another method is to post tons of stuff on similar sites to yours. make a load of facebook accounts and spam everyone!

 

[come2go]

Quad Core Xeon, 8GB Ram, 1TB Raid 5, with Remote Raid 5 Backup.
It's on a 100Mbit connection. Should be plenty to start.

is there a website for that or you own the box its self???

 

[under56]

Fake profiles to get it off the ground make sense. Done creatively and properly nursed they bring in the real folk. I've done this many times and it works. Spam the social sites and you're on your way.

 

[Mckinise]

There was an era of social bookmarking. You could use a software to blast your website to these sites and get tons of one way links. It is not working efficiently any more, it is getting too difficult now. Social Network websites adopted to spam by using the no follow tags. The same things happened with other websites, like Yahoo Answers which was a great tool to get your website indexed fast.

Are you saying that yahoo answers no longer works? I thought it was still a good way to get back links and traffic.