8 Methods to Drive Membership For Your Social Network

Launching a new social network is a daunting task, to say the least. That hasn’t prevented many the company, small and big alike, from tempting fate. Yesterday, Amazon launched Amazon Spark, a quasi Instagram competitor organized around on sharing media, but focused on commerce.
Early days on social networks are often like the wild west. Like any new society, it starts with curiosity and early settlers followed by their peers and followers. At the same time, norms, relationships, and commitment are all in short supply. Your earliest users can have an outsized impact on the future of your platform.
Building that initial cohort is a challenge, but there are a number of techniques for growing that initial base of users.
8 Methods For Recruitment
1. Find Disgruntled Users
Most social networks are slight variations on existing ones — humans connect in very simple ways, forcing this reality. To that end, if there is a network you are modeling yourself off of, consider existing users who have frustration and are looking for an alternative.
500px successfully employed this feature to lure frustrated professional photographers off of Flickr after Yahoo! failed to innovate in a timely manner.
2. Make Migration Easy
Onboarding is the most important aspect of getting a new network running. Breaking users of their existing relationship and usage with another network is challenging, even if the user is already frustrated. Don’t solve for their frustration with a new frustration.
Leveraging existing APIs and methods from the source network offers a simple way to ease the transition. Remember, there are 2 parts to migrate at all times: relationships and content. Too often, we focus on the graph, but the content itself is equally valuable — especially to barren interfaces.
Instagram still offers to link with Facebook and brings users into the fold by reminding them when a user from a better-known network becomes a member for the newer one.
3. Recruit Based on Unique Features / Advantages
Some networks offer capabilities never seen before or have unfair advantages. Consumers are vocal about their needs and wants, providing ample room to recruit new individuals over based on the availability of something that they’ve always wanted.
Facebook successfully leveraged Stories across its portfolio to stifle Snapchat’s growth. Their unique advantage was the pre-existing network graphs and the simplicity of doing it all with one tool.
4. VIP / Early Access for Desired Users
The first users say a lot about the power of the platform. Early users provide lots of opportunities to lend authority to your network as well as can serve as perfect role models on how to use your platform.
Curating the types of users who have the ethic, aesthetic, and audience that you most destine is necessary for every new network. Limited betas and gated access have been staples of the network recruitment toolkit.
5. Create Multiple Pedestals
Social networks can be designed with multiple points of focus to help highlight the individuals that give it strength. Most networks start out completely flat leaving minimal incentive for increased participation. Empty networks have empty metrics.
To counter this, designing user pedestals in one form or another allows you to point to the users and uses that you endorse. Pedestals can be created via in-network placement, as email promotion, or as individual blog posts and interviews.
New communities leverage leaderboards often to highlight the top users.
6. Curate a Story
Networks represent thousands or millions of discrete content and conversational streams. While these can and will form organically, it’s possible to guide this process as well. All that is required is to understand the kinds of resources that will stage well.
Early on and often, seed threads that will be both interesting to create for and engaging to consume. By pointing users in the right direction, we facilitate quality conversations. The volume can be funneled readily and highlighted, as above.
Flipboard still leads in this domain, providing that the insights of one and many can lead to compelling, engaging stories.
7. Have a Contest
Curating a story works great, in principle. However, we don’t always have the audience to make that scale as needed. Adding other kinds of sweeteners or incentives to the mix can help drive people to participate.
Caution is required here. First, avoid forcing staging too much. As many the brand marketer knows too well, forcing people to feature specific things or act specific ways is hard to do and diminishes the quality. Second, make the incentive meaningful both from your eyes and theirs. If financial reward isn’t possible or at a size that seems meaningful, find alternative ways to create value.
8. Pay Individuals
When all else fails, and even if it doesn’t, you can definitely pay partners and influencers to participate in your network. The price tag likely buys you some input into the process and helps set the stage for others that will follow,
One note here, though. Don’t set the bar too high if you don’t believe your customers can match. When users feel that their contributions may not live up to the standard you’ve set, they may opt out before even trying.
Amazon is currently doing this with Spark.
Amazon Spark Bonus
As Amazon has just launched Spark and its focus is specifically on commerce — here are just a few ideas on things that may help advance the efforts.
Import Vendor and Partner Content
Amazon has amazing relationships and content from their massive network of vendors. Most of those vendors are looking for opportunities to stand apart. Turning catalogs into Spark Accounts is a readily scriptable experience once permission is toggled.
Upvert Existing Customer Content
Amazon’s reviews may be one of its most significant human assets. All top reviews feature media already, meaning that the product is know, the purchase is verified, and the content is moderated. Move all review media into Spark accounts for users to quickly activate.
Leverage Existing Influencer Program
Amazon’s often overlooked influencer programs, in addition to Prime, all provide interesting cohorts of users to bring into the Spark fold.
Outreach to Existing Purchasers
All of the above options represent existing content pools. A simple outreach for products that present well on Spark provides a much larger opportunity for new memberships. Coupled with a story or contest, Amazon could quickly drive additional chains of content.
Integrate Spark into Amazon.com
Lastly, bring Spark into the Amazon experience. After moving the content from into Spark, re-integrate it into the Amazon universe to provide additional leverage.
Additional Reading
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Gregarious Narain is a serial entrepreneur and product strategist. A reformed designer and developer, he writes on his experiences as a founder, strategist, and father on the regular. Work with him at Before Alpha, connect on LinkedIn, follow on Facebook, or say hi on Twitter.

