New Community Questions

I got pretty good knowledge of web design and SEO, I have 2 other websites but I have no experience with managing a social network..

I have read tons of articles about social networks but I feel like asking you guys/girls is far better.. I don't want to start in a wrong direction.. so my questions are:

1. What is the best method to advertise your new community? (with best proven results)

2. What is the best method to make people make an account once they visit the website?

3. What is the best method for a brand new social network to make money?

4. Should I go for a specific niche or be generalist? (In my country there are only generalist social networks)

I was thinking to make a community for mature people (over 25yo) with jobs or looking to get a job, very creative and inteligent, informed and open-minded.

5. Web hosting: how much disk space and bandwidth do I need? (for every 100 members perhaps) (no audio or video for now).

I want to offer my members totally free services, including job postings and professional services, classifieds, professional forums etc.

the adress is masterminds.ro (nothing to see right now)

So any advices? I will be very gratefull.. Thanks!

Try googe and see what happens. Word of mouth,join online forums with your links,others websites...ect...ect  there is so many ways out there to get you going. I am using the method of finding people that create the type of software and scripts my members would use and for letting me place them on my site i in turn get a return link on their site for all who come to buy their products can see my link. I have seen a up turn in visitors lately by doing this with just a couple of sites so far.

it depends how much money you want to fork out for marketing really, you can do your marketing on the cheap in the real world too, put cards in shop windows,or your local supermarket in the small ads, things like that which only cost you a small amount. Ive been doing this a long time with many websites and forums and what have you, so i invested in a proggramme that takes all the leg work out of it net side. It's expensive but they do a free demo of it if you want to get a feel for what it does.

http://www.ibusinesspromoter.com/

Yeah all right, I think promotion is the easiest task :)

How about hosting.. How much disk space will I need aproximatively? (I plan not to use video or audio in the first year)

How long is a piece of string as we say here...... Houstonlively did a good post on what you get for 50gb of this that and the other,(something like that anyway) but it totally went over my head by the time i got half way down the page . So in laymans terms, a good starter package with a host providing RMS is good enough, best to find one that is dolphin friendly though (as they say on the side of all good tins of tuna) Ive got 105 members at mo, steady flow, some tunes, and vids ups, and i think i get 500gb a month bandwitdth, and 100gb diskspace, and so far im not even scratching the surface. i use the chat a bit, and im also on the I.M too most nights.