Create a Social Networking Site and Monetize it

In part 1 of this article I discussed how you can identify your target niche, create your social networking site, and market the site to start building your own social networking online business.  In this article I will discuss how you can manage, monetize, and incorporate you business from any browser anywhere in the world.

Manage Your Business

If you think of your social networking site as just a website to hangout and share pictures then you have a nice hobby, not an actual business.  Like any business, you will have some management responsibilities that will need to be done.

Engage your members:  You will need to add value to the site by posting newsletters, responding to forums, add interesting photos, highlighting active members.  You will also need to deal with the abusers of the site by warning, blocking or deleting these members.  You should host contest, provide reward programs, and find advocates on the site.  The more you engage users, the more they will feel a part of something live and keep coming back.

Provide more value: In addition to engaging members you should find ways to provide more value to this audience.  The audience is niche and you should have some knowledge of the needs of the industry or the audience in general.  What kind of content or articles can you provide that they cannot find anywhere else?  How can you provide opportunities for them to gain recognition or financial value from the site?  How can you create opportunities for them to use the site to help make their business successful?  How do you add value to their personal life?  What’s in it for them?

Track site visitors with Analytics: The best way to do this is to get a few lines of code from Google Analytics (google.com/analytics) and add to your site.  This will show you how many visitors you have daily, where they came from, which page they visited etc.  You will be able to see which marketing activities yield the best results and focus more on the message or source of the article that is providing the most visits.

Manage your Reputation:  Among other things, Reputation Management includes the ability to see what people are saying about you online.  Google has a free service called Google Alerts (google.com/alerts).  With this service you can see each time Google index content with a specific keyword.  This is important because you can tell Google to notify you by email each time they index new content with your website name in it.  So each time there is a blog, forum, article or other content posted online by anyone that includes your website name Google will send you an email so that you will be aware of it and can take any necessary action.  Additionally, this is a way to see what your competitors or others in your industry are saying or doing.

Monetize your Site

There are different ways you can go about doing this.  It really will depend on your site, the amount of members you have, and the focus of your site.  However, here are some ways you can monetize your site.

Advertising: This is the most common ways.  You can sell advertising to the specific industry you are targeting for your social network.  Once you have created a membership base you will be able to sell ads to businesses who want to sell their products or services to that membership base.

Membership Fees: Sites with a clear and specific value may be able to monetize via membership fees.  With this you will be able to charge a monthly or yearly fee for access to the site or for access to premium content or features of the site.

Online Store: You can sell relevant product to your site members.  If your site targets university students you may be able to sell books, laptops or other products they may find useful.  If your site targets parents, you may be able to sell children toys, clothes, or products.

Sell Services: You may also be able to sell services that are relevant to your audience.  A site that targets small businesses and entrepreneurs may be able to sell accounting and legal services.  You do not have to perform the services yourself. You may be able to partner with service providers and use the site as the means to finding customers in need of these services.

To learn more details about monetizing your website please read my other blog How to Make Money Online like Myspace and Facebook.

Incorporate your Business and Open a Bank Account

Once you are able to monetize the site you should create a business structure with a business bank account to collect and protect revenue, and  to minimize personal and business liability.

By having a business entity and a bank account, you will be able to create merchant accounts and collect payments from credit cards, debit cards, Visa, Master Card, Amex etc.   You will also be able to write off business expenses to reduce your tax liabilities and separate your personal assets from your business expenses – therefore reducing the chance of personal risks.

1 – To start your business online:

Get your Employer Id Number (EIN) from the IRS.  This is done completely online and can be done in a few minutes.  Your EIN will be needed to start your business bank account and online merchant account

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=102767,00.html?portlet=4

2 – Register your business with your State

To do this you will need to go to the ‘secretary of state division of corporations’ website for your state.  On this site they will have an online form or pdf to allow you to register with your state.  For instance, if your state if Florida, search for ‘Florida secretary of state division of corporations’

3 – Create your Bank Account online

Most banks today allow you to create an account online without ever having to go to the bank.  I don’t remember the last time I have had to go to a bank for any reason except to sign a couple documents here and there.   Go to your bank’s website and find the link to open your account online.  You should be able to manage and monitor your financial transactions from your bank’s website.

4 – Create your Merchant Account

You will need a merchant account to collect funds online.  Some social networking site includes the ability to collect payment via different payment sources.  However, you will still need to create the merchant account yourself that is needed for you to collect the funds.

Vendors:  Paypal.com, authorize.net, paysimple.com

Summary

Once you have created your social networking business you are now on the path to participate in one of the most active and high growth areas in business.  There are no real overnight successes and you will need to work at this business as you would any other business venture.  But you will now be able to start pursuing your dream of building your own online social networking business.

To learn more about creating and monetizing your own social networking site please visit www.rsitez.com.

About the author

Rohan Hall is the Founder/CEO of rSitez, Inc. (www.rsitez.com), a technology firm that helps entrepreneurs create unique revenue-based social networking sites.  He is the author of Stop Working, a book that teaches entrepreneurs how to use technology, globalization, and networks to build a global business.  He has developed technologies for a wide range of entrepreneurs and Fortune500 clients including HP, Corning, Oracle, Honda and various others.

2009 was a tough year for many people and businesses as we experienced the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  We saw many the largest companies fail, countries bankrupt or on the verge of financial disasters, and trillions of dollars in consumer wealth disappear.   But during the same year, Twitter.com audience grew 343%, Tagged.com grew 330%, Ning.com grew 251%, and rSitez.com grew 151%.  Not only that, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook.com Founder/CEO at age 25 ranking in Forbes.com went from 321 to 158, as his net worth went from $1.5 billion to $2 billion during this same period in the last year.

If these businesses did this well in such a terrible economic period imagine their possibilities in the next 1 to 5 years as the global economy recovers.  Could you have your own social networking business and possibly benefit as the global economy recover as well?  Have you ever thought it would be nice to ‘get in the game?’  Have you thought about trying to position yourself to benefit from what could be the next stage of growth for online businesses?  If your answer is yes to any of these questions, then please read on.  Here are some things you can do to get your own online social networking business started today and to start positioning yourself to take advantage of what will certainly be a new recovery period for building wealth in a new global market.

Identify a Niche Market and a Clear Value

Creating a website like Facebook or Twitter will not be enough.  Even though members will have membership to multiple social networking sites, the key driver will be the value you provide to this audience.  Therefore, you should have a good understanding of the audience you will want to join your site and the clear value you will provide to them.  Why should someone who is a member of Facebook and LinkedIn also join your site?  What clear value do you provide?  What problem do you solve?  Once you are clear about this then you are ready to move to the next step.

Create your Social Networking Site

There are different ways you can go about this.  To learn about some of these options you may want to see my blog about the Top 4 ways to create a social networking site like Myspace and Facebook.

When selecting a vendor to create your site you should consider what you want your site to do to create a clear and unique value to your audience.  Can the vendor provide this to you?  Do these features exist in the core application?  If not, can the application be customized or modified to provide this value?  What costs are involved with this?

Vendors:   rSitez.com

Seed your Site

Once your site has been created you will need to pre-populate it before your launch.  No one wants to go to a ghost site.  If you were to go to a newly launched site with only 2 members you would probably leave and not come back.  Recruit friends and family or a focus group to help you add photos, blogs, articles, videos etc to the site so that when members arrive they won’t feel like they are alone on the site and they can start to immediately receive the value provided by the site.

Market your Site

‘If you build it they will come’, phrase is not true in this case.  There are many social networking sites with very few or no members.  The correct phrase for online businesses is ‘if you market it they may come’.   Here are some ways to market your site.

Press Releases: You can post free or inexpensive press releases about your site and demonstrate the value of your site.  Even though press releases are traditionally targeted to journalists with the hope of someone writing about your product, this has changed somewhat.  Press releases are now picked up by the major search engines and can be used as another way to inform internet surfers about your product and services even if no journalist pick up your release.  Press releases have become multi-media and social.  So now you can push multimedia content to social networks and online communities.  Multimedia content including photos, videos, links and other content can now be embedded in your release.

Vendors:  seopressreleases.com, pitchengine.com, prbuzz.com

Blogs:  Blogs are one of the best marketing tools available.  You can write about any information valuable to your industry or niche group to bring attention to your website.  Blogs are free and with the correct content and tagging, can bring a lot of visits and attention to your site.  You should always include a link about your site or reference to your site as a part of the blog or in the credits so that people will be able to find your site or click through to your site.  Blogging also helps you to demonstrate your expertise in your specific niche area.

Vendors:  Wordpress.com, blogger.com

Social Bookmarks: Social bookmarks sites allow you to bookmark your site online.  A bookmark is basically a link to your site, blog, or article.  This link is then shared by others on the social bookmark site.    The more people that bookmark your site or content, the greater relevance the article has.  But also, the more links you will be able receive to your site from the article.

Vendors: delicious.com, stumbleupon.com

SEO your site: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps programs from Google, Yahoo and other search engines (called bots or web crawlers) to understand your site and to index your site so that the site can be easily found when people are looking for similar or related content.  The more search engine friendly your site is, the more likely it will be positioned highly when people are looking for this kind of content.  Your site and all content you post online should have SEO involved to help increase visits to your site.  Your blogs or articles should be tagged to increase your SEO relevance.

Post Articles: Writing articles is similar to blogging.  The main difference is that with blogging you are typically posting general or targeted information on your own or related blog.  With articles, you are typically writing content as an expert which you can submit to be posted on other sites.  These articles can be posted on online magazines, expert magazines, online newspapers etc.  These online journals can often have high ranking and prestige that will create greater credibility for your site and drive a significant amount of traffic to your site.  Each online journal will have different rules for submitting articles so you will need to read these rules before submitting them.  This is also a great way to demonstrate your expertise in a specific area.

Vendors:  ezinearticles.com, ezinearticles.com/

Google AdWords: You can be placed in the top of any search results based on the amount of money you can afford to spend on Google Adwords.  The concept is very simple but brilliant.  You can try every way to be found ‘generically’.  A generic search result is the list displayed on the left side of the google search results page.  Or you can be guaranteed to be found among the millions of sites at the top of the page or the right of the page under the list of ‘Sponsored’ site.  You can set whatever budget you like.  Each time someone search on a keyword you set your ad is displayed.  Each time someone clicks on your ad, you are charged a set fee by google.

Vendor.  Google.com, yahoo.com

In part 2 of this blog I will discuss how you can manage your site, monetize it, incorporate a new business entity and collect money without ever having to leave your home or without even needing to go to the bank.

To learn more about creating and monetizing your own unique social networking site please visit www.rsitez.com.

About the author

Rohan Hall is the Founder/CEO of rSitez, Inc. (www.rsitez.com), a technology firm that helps entrepreneurs create unique revenue-based social networking sites.  He is the author of Stop Working, a book that teaches entrepreneurs how to use technology, globalization, and networks to build a global business.  He has developed technologies for a wide range of entrepreneurs and Fortune500 clients including HP, Corning, Oracle, Honda and various others.

Did you know that you can have your own Social Networking website like Myspace or Facebook – and create multiple streams of income from these websites … while working from home?

Within months of launching their social networking websites, Myspace and Facebook were each valued over a hundred million dollars and are now each valued over a billion dollars after only a few years.  Experts agree, and proven by the success of Myspace, Facebook and other social networking websites like Youtube,  and Linkedin that having your own social networking website is one of the best business opportunities available today.

You can start your own social networking website and target specific groups of people and monetize the site in several ways.  This is very inexpensive to do and can be completely managed from home.  All you need is internet access.   Could YOU own a site like this?  Of course, why not?  For only a few dollars you can have an entire social networking website within a few minutes.  Just visit www.rsitez.com for details.

So why do I recommend that you have your own social networking site?  Because it’s very low cost, easy to manage, can be done from home, easy to monetize, and all you need to do is get people to join the site.  You can have a free site that sells ads; a membership payment site that you charge others to join; or a site that you use to sell products.  There are many other ways to monetize social networking sites, but these are the 3 most common ways.

Let’s talk a little about the difference in these monetization options.

Ads Sales – Advertisers are always trying to find new places to advertise their products.  Clearly, online advertising is putting newspapers and magazines out of business everywhere.  It’s less expensive, has a quicker turn-around time, and more targeted than the way your dad used to advertise.  You don’t need to have a Myspace with over a hundred million members to sell ads.  All you need is a very targeted niche site.  So let’s assume that you’re a stay-at-home mom and you want to build a network of moms.  And let’s say that you can attract a lot of the moms in your town.  All of a sudden you can now go to the grocery store, the bakery, the day care, the gym, the dentist and all the places you normally go and offer them the opportunity to advertise on your site.  You can set whatever price you like for your ads.  The main idea here, however, is that you have a targeted audience of moms in your town that people will want to reach.  This concept is the same for virtually any affinity group, professions, interest etc.  Here are some ideas:  social networking site for painters, musicians, firemen, police, teachers, snowboarders, travellers etc.  There is virtually no limit here.  Try to find something that you have a genuine interest in and imagine that others will to.  Your main job will be to attract these individuals to your site and create value or opportunities for them.

Membership Income – Some sites will have to be free while others will be able to charge a membership fee.  This depends on the value of the content of the site.  Example: a hangout for teens will probably be free.  However, a site that focus on teaching someone how to invest, how to speak French, or how to add some value to their life may charge some fee that the site visitors will gladly pay.  Why?  Because the cost savings and value added by the site to the member is apparent.  Here are some examples:  A site where you help employers recruit top talent; a site where you help people navigate through the financial crisis with proven investment strategies; a site where you provide strategies for lasting relationships; a site where you help someone find that perfect mate.  These sites will need to be credible and will need to provide the value advertised but once established, these sites could become very good cash machines.  This is a great way to make money because you can often charge a subscription fee for these sites, payable monthly, yearly etc.  The fee will be based on the value you provide.  However, you only need 1,000 members paying $10 per month to make $10,000 per month with this method.  That’s a six figure salary from working at home.  Not a bad start!

Selling online – What’s great about this method is that you already have your members online and you know what they like – if you have an affinity niche social networking site.  So let’s say that you have a site that targets football fans and you have an online store with the site.  Guess what you sell? That’s right football memorabilia and other related ‘stuff’.  T-shirts, calendars, balls, game tickets etc.  This could be on a local level – the college team U of M (University of Money), a national team, or just football fans overall.  But where do you get this stuff to sell?  You can partner with the local merchant, take photos of the items, upload the photos and description, collect the orders with your site, and have the merchant fulfil the orders.  Basically, members would be able to order the products on your site, your automatic notification system will email the orders to the merchant, and the merchant ships the products to the customer.    You take a percentage of the sales, thank you sir, for doing practically nothing, manufacturing nothing, warehousing nothing.  Another option is to use amazon.com or amazon.co.uk.  These guys now sell practically anything you can imagine – and they do all the warehousing and fulfilment as well.  However, the main idea here is that you get a piece of every sale for simply having a site that you can attract a group of people who likes to do what you like to do anyway.

Cashflow – It must be obvious by now where I’m going with this.  But here it is.  You can actually do all the above with your social networking site at the same time to create multiple streams of income with recurring cashflow.  You can have a targeted niche social networking website that you: collect recurring membership fees; you sell ads on the site to businesses and individuals; and you can have an online store for your members to buy products – all on the same site.  Of course, once you have the site and the audience you can also offer ‘premium services’ to your members.  Ching, ching … more streams of income.

So this is only a small sample of what you can do today to make money online with your own social networking website, without even leaving your house.

To learn more about creating your own social networking site please visit www.rsitez.com.

About the author

Rohan Hall is the author of Stop Working, a book that teaches entrepreneurs how to use technology, globalization, and networks to build a global business.  His clients include HP, Corning, Oracle, Honda and various other Fortune 500 companies.  He is also the CEO or rSitez, Inc. (www.rsitez.com), a technology firm that helps entrepreneurs create revenue with social networking sites.