

Ask HN: How to drive user aquisition for my new social networking application? - starter

I'm developing a new social network: one that could change the way people communicate for the better. Good applications launch every year but that's never enough.<p>What are your suggestions on how to drive users to join, invite friends &#38; come back often?<p>IDEAS
Launch at one university or large network only.
Using an "invitation only" waiting list strategy.
Forcing users to invite a few friends at sign up.<p>Any more?
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anigbrowl
Reward signups with 'early adopter' or other status indicators. Don't _force_
people to invite a few friends, that feels like multi-level marketing and
pretty much guarantees introverts won't use your service because they want to
kick the tires a bit and get used to it before lending their names to it (it's
embarrassing to recommend something that may turn out to be a waste of time).

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starter
I like that. An early adopter icon shouldn't be too hard to automatically
assign. I'll need to figure out some time of launch strategy first. Like,
Network A first followed by Network B etc. Early adopters in each network
would love that kind of recognition!

Glad I asked about the forced invites. Thanks!

