Getting people to use your brand new social networking community can be a challenge. You can have the greatest social networking site on the planet, but if nobody is using it, what is the point? Myspace wasn't built in a day. There are several things you can do to get the ball rolling.

Post Regularly

Nobody wants to use a site or community that doesn't look like it is buzzing, and the best way to make a site buzz is to have great, fresh content on a daily basis. Until the community gets legs, you should be posting like crazy. Content is king!

Post news stories every day. An easy way to find news stories is to go to Google, do a search for your keyword(s) and click on news. Copy and paste the first few paragraphs of the news story and provide the link to the original article. You want to be the one-stop-shop for news in your niche. There is a reason they are called "current" events.

Write new blog posts every single day. The best articles are the ones that are original, offer breaking news, help the reader, inform the reader, and basically provide something useful that the reader can't get anywhere else. You can copy and paste articles all day long, but in the end, this will not help your search engine ranking or gain any new members. Everyone (including the search engines) wants fresh, original and outstanding content.

Post images, videos, events, links, polls and other content at least bi-weekly. All of these other content types will help make the community look like it has a lot of content and have more to offer to the group members. These items should be updated bi-weekly to keep things fresh, stale content is never good.
If necessary, post as multiple authors so the community looks more active than just one person posting everything. Make sure to use keywords in the post and in the meta tags for each article. Use clever titles, and make each article skimmable. Write with an entertaining tone and write in such a way to encourage comments. Find creative ways to engage and get a reaction out of the reader.

Encourage Comments

Comments are a great way create a back and forth dialogue with readers and community members. In the beginning, you may have to do most of the commenting yourself, but as new members join and interact; comments should take on a life of their own. You should definitely take the time to Comment on articles every day. If someone does post a comment, make sure that you respond immediately to the reader. Answer all questions. Also ask for people's opinions when you post, encourage participation!

Private Messaging

Use private messaging to reach out to other community members daily. Whether it be a "Welcome to X" or "Hey, I saw in your profile that you like X" or "I saw your post on X and it was great." Whatever you need to do to build relationships with other community members, do it. Get creative, private messaging also a great way to keep members coming back to the site.

Exchanging Links

Exchange links with other sites in your niche. Search Google using your keyword; make a list of all of the major sites in your niche. Visit each site and find the contact information or email address of the webmaster. Add each of these sites to your links or resources page. Send an email to each site owner letting them know that you've added their link to your site, and ask if they would mind returning the favor. This is a great way to build your links resources for your readers, as well as get incoming links to your community and improving your traffic and search engine ranking.

Inviting others

Invite other writers in your niche. Using the same list that you used for exchanging links, invite all of these bloggers, writers and site owners to join your brand new social networking community. Let them know that they will be a preferred member or featured writer. Make them feel special and that you are only extending this "special invitation" to certain experts in this niche. Make them feel like they are the chosen one.

Build relationships

Build your network. Whether it be on your community site, or one of the other social networks out there, building a large network will only help you in the long run. Connect with others, and let them know about you and your new community, encourage them to join. Don't be spammy about it, be creative and find a tactful way of inviting these outside relationships into your new community.

Posting on other sites

A great way to lure people back to your site is to go on blogs, forums, and social networking sites in your niche and post your most outstanding content. Yeah, its kind of a drag posting your best stuff on someone else's site, but it comes back...ten fold. Leaving some killer original content on these sites and leaving a link back to your site will get you new members. You can also use these sites to let people know about your new group or site. Create some press release type posts to inform people of this brand new, great resource. Another idea is to go onto forums, and answer questions for people in your niche. Let them know you have the answers.

Leveraging Social Networking and Groups

It is essential to leverage social networking sites, such as Linkedin and Facebook to find experts in your niche. Contact these people and try to create a relationship with them on Linkedin or Facebook. Once you have them in your network on the social networking site, see who they are connected with, then try and connect with them. Continue this technique to build a huge network of people in your niche. Then try to get this group of people to use your new community. Be creative and tactful when approaching people, never spammy.

Facebook - Search for groups with your keyword. Join every group you can find that has at least 1000 members. Visit each group and introduce yourself. Post a few items and answer questions if you can. Wait a week or two and do a press release type post "Hey I just wanted to let you know of this great resource..." If the group allows links, post your link. You can even start targeting individual group members. Find the experts in each group and invite them individually to your site using Facebook PM's. You can always start a Facebook group for your new community as well.

Linkedin - You will need an upgraded account to contact people directly on Linkedin. This is a cost of $19.95 monthly, decide if it's worth it for you. If it is, then search for people using your keyword. Start contacting them directly in Linkedin and invite them to join your new community. Use the preferred member or "special invitation" approach here as well. It is also a good idea to start a Linkedin group for your new community.

Use Google, MSN and Yahoo! Groups - Search for your keyword. Join every group you can find that has at least a thousand members. Visit each group and post an introduction message, some relevant posts, wait a week or two and do a press release type post. Lurk in the group and read the posts, find out who the experts and most active members are and invite them individually to join your new community.

The searching by group technique works well on any of the social networking sites. You can use this link to find the major social networking sites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites.

Search Google for your keyword and add the word groups. This will bring up a list of groups in your niche. Use the same formula, join, introduce, post, wait and post your link. Be creative and sniff out other groups in your niche, groups are a great way to spread the word about your site quickly to a lot of people. Becoming a contributing member of these groups will benefit you in the future as well. Get your name and site known, become the expert in your niche. Post regularly to these groups and gain the respect of peers in your niche. Saturate the industry or niche with your name and your link.

Submit to directories

Submit your site and RSS feed to blog submission sites. Just Google blog Submission Sites and you will get a detailed list of sites to submit to. This is a great way to get free traffic back to your new community. Sure, it's a huge pain in the neck to do, but once it's done you will see increased traffic. I suggest starting here: http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/.

Have a Contest

You can have contests for your users. Whoever posts the most articles in a month, gets X, or whoever invites the most members, gets X, or a photo contest, etc. Be creative, there are tons of ways, that are usually inexpensive, to get your users excited about using the site. Voting for content or earning points is a also a great incentive for members to interact with the community.

Be Viral

Make your community viral. Think of ways that users will spread the word for you. Get the jingle stuck in their head..."Co-stanza." Create instructional, informative, entertaining or even wacky videos on Youtube and include a link back to your site. Be creative, viral is a very mysterious thing, but if you can master her power...beware.

Host Webinars

Hold weekly webinars on your topic. Invite your community members to an informative session with a Q&A. Webinars are a great way to engage members as well as offering something useful to them. I also strongly suggest having an opt-in newsletter on the site, that way members can stay informed on things that are happening in the community. You can also do regular podcasts or videos on your topic. Become the expert in your niche. As usual, be creative and invent new ways to offer something useful to your members.

Make it Cozy

Members want a place that they can feel comfortable. Don't create a cold and sterile environment or overload the reader with "in your face" content. Create a fun and enjoyable place that your members will want to come back to. They say content is king, linking is queen, that would mean User experience is prince? Combine design, layout, fonts, colors, whitespace, and readability with loyal members and compelling content to create an enjoyable user experience.

Organize Meetups

Capture location information of your members and organize local meetups. Put a face with a name. Meetups would be a fun way for members to meet others as well as stay engaged in the community. Depending on your niche, you could hold monthly parties, meetings or get-togethers. Who knows, community members may turn out to be friends off-line.

Word of mouth

Tell everyone you know about the community, on and off-line. People in your address book, friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, enemies, and total strangers, invite them all to check out the new community. Even if they have nothing to do with the niche, invite them. You'd be surprised at the great feedback these people can provide. They may be able to help spread the word as well. Tell anyone who will listen.

Offline

Attend groups, conferences, meetings, etc., anywhere people in your niche meet or hang out. Print up business cards or flyers of the site and hand them out to everyone. If it is appropriate for your niche, hang up the flyers on local bulletin boards. Put the site link in front of eyes, especially eyes that would find your community useful.