SocialGO Blog

$150 of Widgets FREE When Upgrading to Concierge

Got a great idea for a network, but you’re too busy to get it going?  Don’t worry, let us help you.  If you upgrade to our Concierge Plan before the end of February we will give you $150 worth of widgets for FREE.

With our Concierge Plan we do the setup and design work for you, plus help you launch and manage your network downstream.  You also get ongoing advice and coaching from the SocialGO team about Best Practices for network success. Choosing the Concierge plan takes work away from you, so you can enjoy networking with the community you have created.

Check out just a few of the widgets you can choose from:

Facebook Connect - Allow members to login to your network with their Facebook account and publish content to their wall.

Twitter Connect - Let visitors sign into your network with their Twitter credentials. Attract more traffic instantly.

Visitor Radar - Track all profile page visits and let your members see who’s been snooping around.

LabArcade - A huge, customisable collection of games for your members. Endless hours of fun!

LabTunes - Play music from across your entire site.

… and loads more!

To collect your $150 of FREE widgets follow these simple steps:

Go to your Admin Centre at http://my.socialgo.com
On the “Overview” page click on “Change My Plan”.
At the bottom of the page click on “Upgrade” and choose the Concierge plan.
Fill in your credit card details and click on “Add Card Details” to complete the upgrade.
Now that you have upgraded, go visit the ‘Widget Store’ to decide which widgets you want
• Email concierge@socialgo.com with your network name and the widget(s) you want.
Our support team will then install the widgets for you.

Note: there is no free trial when you upgrade from Free or Premium plans to Concierge.

10 Steps to a Successful Network

A bit obvious, we know, but some may be amazed how powerful email invitations to your network can be, it made Facebook what it is today.  Make sure the content of the email is interesting, to the point and that it targets people likely to be interested.  To do this you can use the inbuilt SocialGO Invite Member functionality. Use your normal email account such as Google Mail or use a bulk email service like MailChimp.  You should regularly invite people to your network.

2. Encourage Members to Invite their Friends
If your members like what they see, then they can be the most powerful advocates you’ll ever find.  Make sure you enable “Invite Friends” in the Admin Centre so they too can invite their friends, who invite their friends, who invite their friends etc etc.

3. Create a Great Looking Network
Pictures speak a thousand words and if you have a great looking network, you are more likely to grab people’s attention so that they join up.  You have all the tools in your Admin Centre, with the Network Designer and CSS access, to do a great design.  Or you can get the team at SocialGO to do it for you with the GO Setup & Design module for $349.99 or the GO Logo module for $69.99, which can be found in the ProServices Directory in your Admin Centre at http://my.socialgo.com.

4. Import a Member Data Base
if you have an existing member data base, ie a business or a club, you can import their details into your network in advance of launch so it’s full of member profiles when you open for business.  You can do this by buying the GO Import module from GO ProServices in the Admin Centre.  GO import is $49.99 per 2,000 members.

5. Create Great Content
You cannot underestimate the critical importance of having some fresh, relevant and interesting content on your network.  Not only will your search engine optimization improve with better content, but new members will be far more inclined to come back and invite their friends.  So get blogging, stimulate posts in your forum and add some new photos and videos.  If you need some help there is the GO Content for $49.99 in the ProServices Directory in your Admin Centre.

6. Interact with New Members
When new members sign up, make contact with them on the network. Say hello, have an IM chat with them. That way they will feel welcome.  This is especially important in the early days when you are trying to seed membership.

7. Tweet Away!

Get a twitter account and start building a following on Twitter.  But remember you need to Twitter with intent, people don’t want to hear about what you had for breakfast.

8. Comment on Blogs in your Sector
Work out where the people you are targetting are congregating online, what blogs and foums? Then start engaging people via comments and posts, but be sure to be upfront about who you are and what your trying to do.  Honesty is the best policy in cyberspace.

9. Run an Advertising Campaign
Online advertising is always a great option to draw traffic to your network.  There are loads of advertising platforms you can use, but Google is probably one of the most user friendly.  If you would like some help, the SocialGO team can setup and run Google advertising campaigns for you with the GO Advertising Setup module in the ProServices Directory in your Admin Centre.

10. Create a Facebook Group
Or maybe join some groups that have similarly minded members.  You need to engage the community you intend to target and make them aware of your network.

Tastes better with Concierge

For many network owners the concierge service is a god send. It can be frustrating when you have a fantastic business plan  but you lack the time or skills to develop it yourself and can’t afford the thousands of dollars it would cost for a private developer to build a social network from scratch. With our concierge service you get the ongoing support of a professional design team and are assigned a personal account manager who can show you how to make the most of the SocialGO platform and the many features on offer.

If like Dan Harris, founder of Taste Casting, you already have a website and simply require a social network to be integrated into it, then your personal concierge account manager can replicate the design and maintain a consistent brand aesthetic across your business’ online presence. If you have any existing designs or logos they can be incorporated, if you don’t then we can design them for you. It’s all part of the concierge service. What’s more you get the option to charge members for sign up and the removal of all SocialGO branding, all included in the plan.

Taste casting is a network for amateur food critics who get to attend tasting events in exchange for writing reviews and promoting restaurants. Events feature many different establishments and users must choose one to promote. Dan Harris finds ways of getting publicity for the restaurants through amateur food critics who use sites like twitter and facebook to promote them. A social network is easily the best way to monitor and manage an online community of aspiring food critics. The Concierge team have built this network to Mr.Harris’ requirements and to match the parent site Taste Casting.com, leaving him time to address other aspects of his business.

Yagg community for Gays and Lesbians

“Invent our community” says the title of the Yagg community network. Yagg communauté is a French speaking gay and lesbian network with thousands of active members from around the world. Users find their way to the network through it’s parent site Yagg.com. The two are seamlessly integrated. Users also discover Yagg from their friends who have made use of the Twitter and Facebook connection option.

The Yagg sites have enjoyed success because they offer a place of refuge for French speaking homosexuals who can “Communicate freely with other gays, widen your network of friends and meet political and cultural associations, parties and institutions.” The site is incredibly well designed, making navigation as easy as 123. There are three main tabs on the tool bar providing links to the parent site, the network and a blogs page providing links to all the member’s blogs.

The standard features provided for SocialGO sites are amongst the most valuable and are advertised as such on this network. People love being able to share opinions and experiences using blogs, forums, groups and photo and video uploads. By accentuating the obvious benefits of these features, Yagg has attracted and maintained a healthy online community. The blogging aspect of the site is enhanced by the WordPress plugin, integrating an existing word press blog with the social network. Owner, Xavier Heraud keeps close tabs on his site’s progress with vigilant moderation. This is assisted by the visitor radar widget which provides him with valuable analytic data about site traffic.The latest activity feed has also been important for him, “It has become central in our community. The users see it as something they have in common. We’re not a community where everyone is on his own, talking to his or her friends.” He explains. “A real community is born, bigger than the sum of its users. That’s priceless.” Xavier is one of many owners of non English language networks, it’s easy to set up, because, as he explains, “There is already a pack in French!” Xavier does not charge his members for signing up but he does make money from his network by providing ad space to relevant institutions and selling merchandise from his site.

HIS story in the making - Real Estate Network

There are plenty of hopefuls who try their hand at the Real Estate industry, but those who don’t know what they’re doing are going to fail. For property investors, few things are as valuable as a source of insider business tips and information. HIS real estate network lets you know the benefits of its features as soon as you hit the landing page. You are greeted by customised graphics displaying all the site features as well as an automatic video that informs potential users about the free sign up and 100’s of downloads available. All of this is arranged in the framework of a professional yet playful office stationary theme.

The network aims to attract property investors who seek communications with other professionals. There are about 500 investors, all of whom can make contributions to the community based on their experience. These contributing professionals are what makes the network valuable, justifies a sign up fee and makes membership an attractive prospect to new investors. These experts in the field of real estate provide their strategies and tips which are available on the downloads page. The forum is also used to disseminate industry tips to investors. There is a thread for investors seeking legal advice and another where properties can be listed free of charge.

If you work in an industry that depends on being in touch with the right professionals, then online social networking is an indispensable tool for your business. The more professionals stand to benefit from access to exclusive information, the more you are justified in charging for access to it. Find a way to isolate vital intellectual property into a restricted community, and your success is assured.

Social Networks for Schools

Educational institutions can benefit enormously from social networks. Lecturers can provide reading lists and notes for students online, upload videos or mp3’s of lectures and keep students informed about changing timetables using the events function. There is an obvious appeal to students who can use it to communicate with one another for social and study purposes. Eventually all universities and  colleges will make use of online networks as a crucial form of mass communication in the 21st century.

Another aspect of social networking that benefits students is the ability to stay in touch with their families while they are away. Ridley college parents network serves this purpose, as well as being a promotional tool for the school itself. This puts anxious parents’ minds at rest and allows them to socialise with other parents of students at Ridley and to form a community.

Parents are reassured of the quality of the institution by the appearance of this neat and professional site which has video advertisements explaining the benefits of the college and telling the story of its history. There are students from 30 different countries attending the college, so realistically a parent association which didn’t make use of the Internet would be impossible to maintain. The events function is great for keeping all the parents informed about activities and events at the college. Although Ridley college parents network is merely an informal way for the parents of students to learn more about their child’s education, it illuminates the startling potential that socialGO networks offer as an administrative tool for educational institutions.

Introducing GO ProServices - Available now

SocialGO has just released a range of purchasable services found in the Admin Centre for all network owners. From creating designs to setting up domains, the SocialGO team will give a helping hand to any user that needs some assistance.

Head over to the Pro Services section of the Admin Centre to see more information about all of these newly released services.

SocialGO in 2010

A very happy new year to the whole SocialGO family! We have kicked 2010 off to a fantastic start and the whole team are very excited about the year ahead.

First of all, we are delighted to announce that Vikrant Bhargava has joined our board of directors. Vikrant is one of the world’s most successful internet entrepreneurs and will be playing an important role helping to define our strategy going forward. We are really excited about working with him to grow SocialGO in the months to come. As Monday’s press release put it:

Bhargava, who brings a wealth of expertise in internet-related industries to SocialGO, co-founded PartyGaming plc and is largely credited with taking that company from start-up in 2001 to nearly $1B in revenue by 2006.

Secondly, myself and Steve Hardman who founded SocialGO with Dominic Wheatley in 2007 will be joining the board as joint Managing Directors.

The SocialGO team is also growing with the addition of two new developers. Mark Hamlin and Chris Beck have joined us as work continues on Version 2 of SocialGO. Version 2 will be a completely new code-base to power our networks bringing a combination of new features, improved speed and greater customization. It is still in its early stages of development but we are really excited about what it will mean for niche social networking. We are laying the foundations to make SocialGO the platform of choice for building social networks online. It will represent a big leap forward for SocialGO when it launches this year.

We have new features coming to SocialGO networks in the next few months including a new chat system, a classifieds system and more. More information will be posted on the SocialGO Owners Blog and via @socialgo.

Advertising on Social Networks

2010 is going to be the year of advertising on social networks.

Smart network owners quickly learn the huge potential of selling advertising space on their networks. Users will encounter these ads daily and they can be used effectivley both by small local businesses and by large international corporations. The fact that this form of advertising facilitates direct access to obscure, diasporic, niche consumer groups makes it a revolutionary market tool. Ads on social networks are going to be big news in 2010, this is what eMarketer magazine is saying.

Earned media (or free media) is also going to be an important marketing term this year. Earned media refers to the publicity gained through methods other than paid advertising. Posting relevant information on forums, blogs and websites can build up hype about your product and consumers share their opinions about the product with other relevant consumers - thereby allowing businesses to access the target market without having a hefty marketing budget.

12 Inspiring stories of Social Networks

Anyone who is familiar with the Internet knows that social networking has changed the way it is used. Rather than spending hours browsing, many users simply access a handful of sites on a regular basis, particularly social networks. Some research has shown that now, social networks online are even more popular than pornography. But despite these impressive facts, it isn’t simply a case of casting a net, putting your feet up and waiting for the big haul. Network owners can dramatically improve their chances of success by adding content that will not only attract curious browsers but will keep them coming back for more. Ask yourself, what do people need that I can provide? where is the gap in the market? This blog, taken from mashable.com, tells some inspirational success stories about people who have truly benefited from the power of online social networking.

12 Inspiring stories of Successful Social Networkers