A few months ago I built GenealogyWise.com for one of my clients. GenealogyWise is a social network for people interested in researching and sharing their genealogy or family history. In just a few months, this social network already has 3,000+ member-created groups on genealogy topics, 14,000+ registered members and large amounts of user-generated content.
One of the keys to successful launch of this social network was that a list of “key influencers” in the genealogy sector was developed. Then, we reach out to those key influencers when GenealogyWise was in beta and invited them to be the first members of the social network. Not only did many of those key influencers join, but they also invited their friends, posted on their blogs, and told others about it on other genealogy communities.
Yesterday I read a blog entry about a Broadway musicals social network, BroadwaySpace.com. Much of their success is credited to getting Broadway actors and other celebrities to join their social network.
The book Influencer contains the story of a PhD who took a job for a university trying to get local farmers to adopt new, more effective wheat seed. The PhD was able to get one farmer to test the new seed. That farmer had a bumper crop, however, the other farmers were still unwilling to use the new wheat seed. The PhD had made the mistake of selecting a test farmer that was not trusted and actually hurt the wheat seed adoption instead of helping his efforts.
It is important that the first people to test a concept are “Influencers” who will give the concept credibility. It is very important that the first members of a social network are the right members. If they are true “Influencers” they will serve as a large part of the catalyst for growth.
Posted on September 30th, 2009 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Online Communities, Social Networking, Viral Marketing
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