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Starting and managing a Social Networking Site Part 1 – Your Niche
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Geek One on 30/04/2009 03:04:00
 
Many individuals visit social networking sites that support the general
population on the Internet. We find ourselves searching through groups and
individuals to find someone with our same interest. The need and requirement of
millions of Internet users to find groups that share the same interest has
created a huge market for specialized social networking sites. Long gone are the
days of just MySpace, FaceBook, HI5 etc..
Internet users require immediate access and information related to their
specific interests. The goal of this article is to show you how to create a
social networking site that is geared towards your specific interest or niche,
find webhosting, receiving installation services, marketing, and ongoing
support. In Part one we will cover finding your niche. Are you ready to enter
the world of owning and managing a social networking site? Hopefully after
reading all of the segments you will have the answer to that question.
Finding your niche
It is safe to assume that the social networking giants, MySpace and FaceBook
have the general social networking market wrapped up. If you are thinking of
launching just a regular run of the mill general social networking site it would
be in your best interested to rethink this idea. It will save you a lot of time
and money in the long run.
The key is to find what interests you because if you launch a site that is
aligned with something you are passionate about you are more likely to be
dedicated to its success.  Let’s say for instance that you are an avid golfer,
you love playing the game and you love watching the game on television. If you
have that much interest in golfing you will probably find it very easy to work
to build and manage your Golfing Social Network.
Assessing the competition in your niche
As an example we will use the niche “Golfing” as our niche. Now you will
need to visit google.com and enter these terms one at a time to determine the
results. You will notice that “Golfing” returns 9,700,000 results. This is
acceptable as when you start reaching 15,000,000 results and higher as this will
make it very difficult to compete in the search results.  Now you have a niche
that allows you to target a specific group on the Internet and chances are that
you will get very good rankings over time on Google. But that’s another
story…
Where do we go from here?
In part 2 we will discuss the best software to use. Please keep in mind that
this is a very important step as it will form foundation of your social network.
Bad software equals disappointing results. Until part 2, Happy Networking!