MyCigarFriends - Social Networking Site

[KevinG]

Here's my new social networking site for the premium cigar market. I decided to build on my strengths in this area. (More on the old site later.)

http://www.mycigarfriends.com/

It still needs some development work to make it more user friendly.

I have Aria Giovanni doing promos and cigar instructional videos for me. I'm assuming if you're on this forum, you should know who she is, but just in case ... she is a former Penthouse Pet and well known adult model.

What's really cool is that she smokes cigars in real life, so she is not just a "paid poser".

You can see her welcome video beckoning you to join and there is a link below that for her first instructional video, "How to Cut a Cigar". We just filmed "How to Light a Cigar", but I still have to get the editing done.

What is cool is that I have proven that I am not cannibalizing my other cigar site's business. This site is still very new. I haven't done much SEO and haven't bought any traffic. Currently, the main source of traffic is from banner ads on my other cigar site. Both sites have free sign ups to be part of the community. The membership base has very little crossover. So, people are landing on Cigar Review, and not signing up, but they click through on the banner to MyCigarFriends and they DO sign up.

That means I am gaining a new additional audience that I was losing before.

Here is what is important about having social networking in your marketing mix. (This is some of what I presented on the Internext Marketing Panel a few weeks ago.)

Everyone gets fixated on MySpace and Facebook.

I am not talking about having a profile on MySpace. I fucking hate MySpace. Niche Community Sites are the Key to Making Money

Facebook and MySpace are social networks in name only. Social networking is really about identifying with a community that is built around a specific topic.

The problem with the social networking destinations like Facebook and MySpace is that they're not about anything - they're about Facebook and MySpace.

Instead, smaller sites with a narrow focus gain visitors that have a strong interest in a particular field of content.

Any site can include social networking features such as profile pages, blogs and the ability to upload and share photos or videos. But those features aren't enough to build a community - Community Sites Need a Common Bond to Make Money.

Next week I will be starting development on a fetish social networking site for a client, http://www.marquisamerica.com/.

For anyone that needs a site like this, I am available for hire.