Create a Social Networking Site

Why Create a Social Networking Site?

A Look at the Continually Evolving Platform of Social Media

Why not is really the question here! Social networking is the wave of web 2.0, and it will continue to be in web 3.0. Niche social networking sites are popping up all over the place, as people are growing tired of broad solutions like Myspace. Why not create your own local social networking site? Or a fan site, or a product owner's site? The possibilities are endless. Best yet - your visitors create the content...all you have to do is moderate it!

What's in this resource?
This page will point you toward the resources you can research for your own personal needs and budget. Creating your own social networking site can involve time and money, depending on the route you take. Be sure to consider all of your options before selecting a software package that will be the engine for your social site.

Free vs. Premium Social Software
As with any kind of website CMS these days, you can find some great solutions that are totally free: free plugins, themes, and great community support. This is always a viable solution for any small start-up or "just for fun" site.
If you're looking to set the foundation for a large social networking site in the future, you may want to consider a premium solution for future expansion and better piece of mind - nothing would be more devastating to hear that your free software platform has been abandoned, and updates will no longer be available.

Take A Poll!

What are your aspirations for your social networking site?

I want to create one for fun, and see how far it goes.

I want to create one as an awareness building tool for the products I sell.

I want to create one for a cause (non-profit, political, or otherwise).

I want to create one for a local community site (my region, state, province, etc.)

I want to create the next Facebook :)

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What Should a Social Networking Site Offer?

Expectancies and Must-Haves for Social Networking Sites

The "face" of social networking sites has changed dramatically in recent years, and there's no doubt that this can be attributed mostly to Facebook. Remember how it used to be a site just for college kids, and how you could only join your college network if you registered under your college email address? Those days have changed. Social networking is expected to be un-restricted and in-exclusive, easy to use and always available, even for niche topics. Here are several elements that your new social networking site should include:

2. Branded URLs for Users
3. The Ability to Be Heard
4. Censorship is So Communistic
5. Sharing is Caring
6. Your Continual Presence
7. What's Your Social Networking Strategy?
9. Other Pages You Might Like

Branded URLs for Users

Yoursite.com/TheirName!

Everybody likes having a brief, identifiable URL. For instance, Delicious.com gives youDelicious.com/username, Digg.com gives you Digg.com/users/username, LinkedIn gives youLinkedIn.com/in/username and so forth. The shorter, the better. Why is this so important?

Think of it this way: if people really connect with your site, they'll value their user account and will want to build it up, both in terms of integrity (post count, ranking) and in sharing their account with others. They'll display it on their blog, or on user profiles that they own on other social networking accounts. This, in turn, gives you more backlinks and more attention.

It's All In A Name
Keep in mind that these days, people are passionate about their username. This is the age of self-branding: they'll use the same username across every site and social networking account they own. It's their Twitter username, their branded Facebook page, and everything else...perhaps even on their own business card. Your social networking site will be yet another addition to their repertoire - it's important to allow them the opportunity to "own" their name on your site.

If your social networking site gives users a direct URL to their profile that looks like "mysite.com/users/1/4561270," then, the magic is gone. Your users will have little desire to share or post a link to their profile anywhere.

The Ability to Be Heard

Opinions are everything!

A social networking site will be a failure if there's no opportunity for the community to rate or rank things, give opinions or comment on other people's comments. Community members like to create or be a part of "subcultures" within a site. If you have a social networking site for cars, there's no doubt that a Mustang group will eventually spring up (regardless if you create it or not). Let the people organize and create groups based on their interests. They just might invite more potential members for your site, who have the same interests!

Seeing Stars
If you're running a product review social networking site, it's an absolute must to include star ratings for products. Simple 5-star bars barely cut it these days. See if your CMS will let you provide rankings for multiple categories (Price, Service, Speed, etc.), expanded statistics (averages, percentages, bar charts) or anything else that gives the bigger picture. The more all-inclusive your feature set is for your social networking site, the more interactive your visitors will be.

Comments for Feedback...and Interactivity
Don't stop at star ratings, though: make sure your social networking site has nested comments, or the ability to provide "comments under comments." There are great 3rd party applications for this that are completely free, just in case your CMS doesn't offer it: Disqus is amongst the best of them all.

Censorship is So Communistic

Let the People Talk, Relatively Un-Restricted

Social networking is all about free speech, with minor imitations. People have things to say - don't get in their way when they are on a soapbox. Remember, great discussions foster lots of return visits. They also add more content to your site without a bit of work on your part!
The absolute worst thing you could ever do on a social networking site is to delete conversations or parts of them. It will be noticed by others, and it will hurt your credibility as a webmaster in a significant way.

Censorship? Are You !@#$ing Kidding?
Cursing, as you've seen, has been a part of social networking across even the most high profile sites like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. Unless you see the absolute need to do so, it might not be a good idea to censor common curse words.

Others that are especially profane, hurtful or racist should be censored, though. Any site for or visited by minors should have a strict censorship policy in place.

Having a Social Networking Policy in Place
All social networking sites need a social networking policy that you've created. Social networking policies outline the do's and don'ts for your site, ranging from what you consider to be harassment, to how your users are expected to behave.

Make it so that this policy must be read or somehow acknowledged before the username creation area of your site. The point is to keep things civil, not to police the community...there is a difference!

Sharing is Caring

Letting Your Users Upload Content...Lawfully!

Another huge aspect of social networking is the ability to share content, which will come in the form of links and multimedia. As the webmaster of a social networking site, it is sometimes assumed that you'll give your community the ability to upload images and video. As you may have guessed, this can significantly increase your costs (bandwidth & disk space) and liabilities (copyright infringement).

Don't worry, though: there are ways to keep costs down with cloud hosting for multimedia content, and better web hosting alternatives than shared hosting.

Being Responsible for Copyright Infringement
As for the liability of your users uploading copyrighted content, it's important to know your responsibility: you are the webmaster, therefore, you are responsible for issues that arise when your users are uploading things without proper consent. It's standard practice for the 'offendee' to write you, the webmaster, and request that the material be taken down.

Social Bookmarking Isn't Dead
Another huge part of sharing is when your community shares your site with others. Be sure that all of your site's pages are equipped with social bookmarking icons so that they can be easily bookmarked or shared outside of your community. Get to know the social bookmarking services out there, and which ones would be the best "fit" for your individual sites.

Have you noticed a trend, recently? Many of the big sites out there are no longer jamming a dozen social bookmarking icons on their articles. Instead, Facebook Like, Tweet This and Buzz Up have taken their place. This is kind of like the age of "social networking bookmarking." Less people are saving links to a site, and simply sharing them with friends.

Your Continual Presence

Without You, It Falls Apart

It's true, social networking sites are not "set it and forget it" business ventures-- especially in the beginning. Similar to the difficulty of starting a forum, your social networking site will be a barren wasteland without your content additions! Start it off by drafting a few good ideas and writing some "actionable" content that will prompt some opinions. Get a handful of friends to join your new social networking site and reply to your initial posts to get things going. Once a few new members start rolling in, let them get to know you as an individual and respond to their posts.

The Center of the Social Universe? It's You, Dear Webmaster!
As your community grows - don't stop showing your presence, or their faith in your site will waiver. People know when a webmaster abandons their site, especially when there aren't any more Tweets on a Twitter account, or when the site has obviously been neglected or left unchanged for long periods of time.

Do your best to keep things fresh and up-to-date, not only with conversations, but with features, contests or anything else interactive you can provide. Although your social network is all about the community, the brand name behind it is your baby - and you'll be held responsible for its success or failure!

What's Your Social Networking Strategy?

Why Going Broad Might Mean Failure

While being the next big thing might sound like a great dream to chase, it is more than likely a failure waiting to happen. If you're looking to create a social networking site, make sure it's NOT too broad, or you will be wasting a lot of effort. Does this mean all hope is lost? Absolutely not...and there are two words that will point you in the right direction:
THINK LOCAL!

Local Is Where It's @
Local marketing is only going to get hotter as the years go by. People don't search for "doctors," they search for "best doctors in Tampa FL." Or, "best bars in Toronto." Just imagine if you ran a social networking site just for your local area. It could be for your city, town, or even your county or territory. It could also be for your university or church. Keep in mind, many of these organizations either have poor social networking presences (or none at all), which equals a very high chance of ranking your social networking site for them at the top of page #1 for all search engines.

Social networking is all about getting people together. Where do they most likely want to get together? In their local area. They want to meet other local people...perhaps for dating, meeting friends, or just hearing opinions of people who can give a valid recommendation because they actually know the area. The good thing about social networking software is that it's a message board, dating site, local business finder and personal profile system all in one!

Why Going Local Is Also "Easier"
This is why creating a social network section for your immediate local area is the best way to gain a remarkable advantage in search engine rankings, and foster a community that already exists (your fellow citizens) of whom are looking for a local meeting spot just for their area! Promoting your local social site is awfully easy, too. Just utilize your local supermarkets, newspapers and giveaways. Use your existing Facebook friend list to get the party started.

Premium Social Network Software

SocialEngine

The "everything you need" social networking package

An attractive premium social networking package that creates sites similar to Facebook. With a neat and orderly look, you can have all of the features of an enterprise social networking site with very intricate settings.

SocialEngine is famous for its plugin system, which Includes many separate add-ons for specific social networking features. Additionally, the robust community of 3rd party developers releases new plugins based on popular demand. Current official plugins include: photo albums, blogs, chat/IM, classifieds,
events, forum, groups, mobile, music sharing, polls and video sharing.

The software was purposely left "unbranded," so that its customers aren't forced to have a "powered by..." notice at the bottom of each page. It has a one-time price tag of $250.

 See Official Demo of SocialEngine

PHPfox

Backed by a professional development company

If you're intent on clean interfaces, PHPfox is for you. Its amongst the oldest and most popular premium social networking packages available. Creating sites very similar to that of Facebook or MySpace, this package has every option you can imagine and then some: video sharing, commenting, friending, groups, polls, social bookmarking, and a laundry list of many others through the thriving developer community.

Traditionally, customers have chosen PHPfox as it is the most "commercial" product in the realm of social networking, with a serious team behind it that regularly upkeeps the software with updates and additions while providing support.

PHPfox three pricing tiers: Life, Network and Community; which respectively cost $99, $199 or $299, each coming complete with various options and support packages..

 See Official Demo of PHPfox

DZOIC Handshakes

Reminiscent of the Facebook Wall

DZOIC Handshakes was developed to mimic the "Facebook Wall" with threaded commenting (complete with a "Like" button system). It comes at a standard price comparable to that of other packages, and several major plugins are available separately if needed that add "question and answer" functionality, paid memberships, advertising, forums and a multitude of media sharing capabilities.

DZOIC Handshakes has a recently-reduced price tag of $249.

 See Official Demo of DZOIC Handshakes

Rayzz

The media-heavy social software

Rayzz is the more "media centric" social networking platform of the bunch. Consider it if your intended social network's main focus is about video display and sharing, music sharing, image posting and community article posting. Also including blogging, social gaming and field-packed, customizable user profiles - Rayzz is a decent platform for a community of media enthusiasts.

Rayzz has a one-time fee of $597, making it one the most expensive social networking software package. Also available are separate social networking site
packages just for video, music sharing and images.

 See Official Demo of Rayzz

Free Social Network Software

Dolphin

Tons of features and updates...but buggy

Perhaps one of the most popular "free" (note the quotes) social networking programs around: Dolphin was created for setting up social network sites right out of the box. You'll have to pay to get their copyright removed, which is a $99 one-time fee.

While Dolphin is impressive, it is infamous for having many complaints about scripting bugs and other issues that are never fixed as new features keep getting added with each version update.

 Get Boonex Dolphin here

Buddypress (for Wordpress)

Turning Wordpress into a social network

It's the stability of Wordpress MU with the expandability of BuddyPress: a noble effort to transform Wordpress MU until a full-fledged social networking site.

Buddypress comes complete with user profiles, individual blogs, groups, RSS and a lot more. Since it runs on a Wordpress platform, you get all of the benefits, plugins and ease of modification that you know and love.

 Get Buddypress here

Elgg

Community-rich software for social

Despite the strange name, Elgg is a popular and free social networking platform that continues to evolve and improve upon itself since its earliest inception. It continues to be a favorite in the open source world for its stability, features and friendly community.

 Get Elgg Here