How to market a social media website?

[yoyoma02]

I'm working on a website for a small business idea. The basic idea for the website is to give a tool for entertainment artists (musicians, comedians, authors, etc...) to have a social networking-type directory of venues around the country to book their own tour. Venues and artists will have their own profile pages (think of Myspace, Facebook and LinkedIn combined and on steroids).

The site is in the process of being built. However, as we get closer, I realize that I'll need help getting to message and information out to venues/night clubs/coffee shops/book stores, etc... around the country.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to market a website like this? What would be the best way to reach out to venues to have them sign up for a free account? More importantly, what's the best way to have venues use and keep their account updated? I have a marketing budget of $500.

Also, does anyone have any ideas that I can provide for the venues to make the website VERY valuable to them? What can I do to make my website stand out from Facebook or Myspace?

Once I establish venues on the website, I have no doubt entertainment acts would follow, as it would allow them to book their own tours without agent commissions or sorting through a bunch of stuff on Google.

[littledragon]

Wow, big task you have set yourself here. Do the general creating FB pages, MySpace accounts and make sure you create a video if possible and upload it to many of the video distribution sites. I'd concentrate on a specific area first and try to dominate that.

[dvdreplication]

I don't have any idea, but the best practice to market a social media website is to go for a campaign at school, colleges, and universities.

[KyleXY]

If I'm not mistaken, the premise behind Myspace at one point was catered to artists and musicians as well before it grew out to expand to everyone. Linkedin is mostly an online resume. I'm not sure I can see the linkage you're trying to associate with this by combining the 3? I would imagine there would be a lot of footwork needed to get the venue's to use the site, especially since right now they have opportunities to set up independent pages already.

[GoodbyeToronto]

My only advice would be to gain a strong online presence through what has become 'traditional' online methods. Gain a following and watch people convert to your platform. If it truly does what you say it will do and people find that using this site makes things more efficient for them, then they will come.