Social media is a phenomenon which has become larger and more profitable than anyone has ever imagined. Social media can truly be considered a revolution in how individuals connect to one another. However, something a bit strange will seem to keep happening to social media websites: they tend to fall into obscurity. Almost in an instant, the nr.1 social media site MySpace has been subjugated by Facebook. It is only fair to assume that this new social website may share kind of the same fate as MySpace; a quick online search will most likely reveal tons and tons of users who once used Facebook and who are now looking for something rather new to keep contact with. This guide will offer you a few basic concepts to make an efficient social media website.

1. Try to pick a good name. Your site`s name will need to be both memorable, but also catchy. Try to avoid making it too long, not more than three words, and try to make those actual words have a meaning and not just choose them randomly. Avoid using uncommon abbreviations.

2. Try to define as clearly as you can what you wish your website to do and in which way your site will be different from other social media websites. One hot-button problem to notice at the first steps of your planning stages will be privacy; social media, especially Facebook, has managed to find itself under a lot of fire from its members or organizations which oppose its invasion of peoples` privacy.

3. Lease a bit of storage space from a web hosting operator. Be certain to choose a hosting service operator which will provide most of the feature you know you are going to need to efficiently run your website. If you don`t have a hosting service operator which you enjoy working with, you may choose HostGator or Domains.com.

4. Try to design your website`s layout using whatever tools you think are necessary but also you are familiarized with. If you may have a professional tool, like Dreamweaver, than this may possibly be the route you should choose. However, if you don`t wish to take too much time to learn how to use such a professional tool or don`t have the financial resources to purchase it, then you should know there are a few free alternatives that you can use as well. Such great tools will be SeaMonkey, which will include a few basic features of Dreamweaver; Expression Web from Microsoft (though it may cost some money, but not too much); and KompoZer, which is another great free tool how may do the job, but doesn`t have too many of Dreamweaver`s features.

5. Try to integrate a database into your website. User data will need to be stored somewhere and that is exactly what databases are for. You will also have a few tools available for this as well. SQL Lite, Access or MySQL are a few of them. If you may already have knowledge about how to use one of them, there is not reason to learn them all.