Social Networks for Everyone!! Blog

The global economy seems to be out of control.  This week the USA Senate passed an $838 billion stimulus package to bring the US back from the current recession.  The UK and other countries are enacting similar measures to fix their own economy.  Jobs are being lost by the tens of thousands, over 500,000 jobs lost in the US alone last month.  Is this the time to get depressed?  HELL NO!!!  This is the time to seek out the opportunities that are in front of us.

Wherever there is chaos, there are opportunities!  It’s time to stand up and look around to see things that you may not have seen yesterday.  Where are the opportunities today?  What will be the opportunities tomorrow?  I believe that today, more than ever, globalization is very relevant.  With the right strategy, technology, strategic relationships you can do practically anything. 

So what are some of the things that you can do today?

Start your own social networking site that targets a specific niche and monetize it.  This is very inexpensive to do and can be completely managed from home.  All you need is internet access.  We have seen Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, Xing, Linkedin and others grow from zero to millions of users within a few months.  They have grown from 0 to hundreds of millions of dollars in months as well.  Could you own a site like this?  Of course, why not?  For only a few dollars you can have an entire site like this within a few minutes.  Just visit www.rsitez.com for details.

So why do I recommend that you have your own social networking site?  Because it’s very low cost, easy to manage, can be done from home, easy to monetize, and all you need to do is get people to join the site.  You can have a free site that sells ads; a membership payment site that you charge others to join; or a site that you sell items.  There are many other ways to monetize social networking sites, but these are the 3 most common ways.

 Let’s talk a little about the difference in these monetization options.

Ads Sales – Advertisers are always trying to find new places to advertise their products.  Clearly, online advertising is putting newspapers and magazines out of business everywhere.  It’s less expensive, have a quicker turn-around time, and more targeted than the way your dad used to advertise.  You don’t need to have a Myspace with over a hundred million members to sell ads.  All you need is a very targeted niche site.  So let’s assume that you’re a stay-at-home mom and you want to build a network of moms.  And let’s say that you can attract a lot of the moms in your town.  All of a sudden you can now go to the grocery store, the bakery, the day care, the gym, the dentist and all the places you normally go and offer them the opportunity to advertise on your site.  You can set whatever price you like for your ads.  The main idea here, however, is that you have a targeted audience of moms in your town that people will want to reach.  This concept is the same for virtually any affinity group, professions, interest etc.  Here are some ideas.  Social networking site for painters, musicians, firemen, police, teachers, snowboarders, travellers etc.  There is virtually no limit here.  Try to find something that you have a genuine interest in and imagine that others will to.  Your main job will be to attract these individuals to your site and create value or opportunities for them.

Membership Income – Some sites will have to be free while others will be able to charge a membership fee.  This depends on the value of the content of the site.  Example: a hangout for teens will probably have to be free.  However, a site that focus on teaching someone how to invest, how to speak French, or how to add some value to their life may charge some fee that the site visitors will gladly pay.  Why?  Because the cost savings and value added by the content is apparent.  Here are some examples: A site where you help employers recruit top talent; a site where you help people navigate through the financial crisis with proven investment strategies; a site where you provide strategies for lasting relationships; a site where you help someone find that perfect mate.  These sites will need to be credible and will need to provide the value advertised but once established, these sites could become very good cash machines.  This is a great way to make money because you can often charge a subscription fee for these sites, payable monthly, yearly etc.  The fee will be based on the value you provide.  However, you only need 1,000 members paying $10 per month to make $10,000 per month with this method.  That’s a six figure salary from working at home.

Selling online – What’s great about this method is that you already have your members online and you know what they like – if you have an affinity niche social networking site.  So let’s say that you have a site that targets football fans, you have an online store with the site.  Guess what you sell? That’s right football memorabilia and other related ’stuff’.  T-shirts, calendars, balls, game tickets etc.  This could be on a local level – the college team U of M (University of Money), a national team, or just football fans overall.  But where do you get this stuff to sell?  You can partner with the local merchant, take photos of the items, upload the photos and description, collect the orders with your site, and have the merchant fulfil the orders.  Basically, members would be able to order the products on your site, your automic notification system will email the orders to the merchant, the merchant ships the products to the customer.    You take a percentage of the sales, thank you sir, for doing practically nothing, manufacturing nothing, warehousing nothing.  Another option is to use amazon.com or amazon.co.uk.  These guys now sell practically anything you can imagine – and they do all the warehousing and fulfilment as well.  However, the main idea here is that you get a piece of every sale for simply having a site that you can attract a group of people who likes to do what you like to do anyway.

It must be obvious by now where I’m going with this.  But here it is.  You can actually do all the above with your social networking site at the same time.  You can have a targeted niche group, that you collect membership fees from, you can sell ads on the site, and have an online store as well – all on the same site.  That what we call a three-fer. 

So this is only a small sample of what you can do today to make money online, without even leaving your house.

You can learn more about creating your own social networking site at www.rsitez.com, and don’t forget to be bold.  Remember, the opportunities are there, but it’s up to you to find them and to take action today.