Some of you may have heard the borage of advertisements last year for Black Crow Media’s social network, Heyawl.com. When I became aware of the site, I wondered how much competition they would be. A heavy hitter like Black Crow Media has the means to promote their website, all day-everyday, and they did. And while ValdostaConnect had double the amount of members, Black Crow was promoting Heyawl.com as the biggest social network in south Georgia (and since the management knew of ValdostaConnect it seemed like they were taking the attitude that no other site matters). From a business stand point, this attitude was expected because when you think that you have started something great, you have this gut feeling that you can beat all of the competition.
One day I decided to sign up for an account to see what Heyawl.com was about. Now I’m not being arrogant when I say this, but after spending less than 15 minutes on the site I told myself that I didn’t have anything to worry about. You see, as I looked at the profiles I immediately got that MySpace feeling. Many of the member names were aliases where you couldn’t tell who was who, and noticeable content posted by members (profile pictures, photos, and comments) was provocative.
Now let me take you back to November 2007 when I launched ValdostaConnect.com. There were several main goals for creating the site. First of all, I was not trying to create a local version of MySpace. Why do that? Valdosta has it’s own style and flavor, and I was very tired of online companies who have no presence in Valdosta whatsoever capitalizing on our online business (they want us to buy their goods and services yet they put nothing back in our community). The other reason why I did not set out to duplicate MySpace, was the fact that as a Christian it gets harder and harder to go to websites without being exposed to explicit language and graphics. So when putting my plans together about the site, being family friendly was a top priority. ValdostaConnect is not perfect, but if I come across inappropriate content or if a member brings it to my attention, I remove it from the site.
Lastly and most importantly I wanted to create an online community where people could easily log on, share who they are, what they are about, and what they want to accomplish. Networking is a great way to help yourself and others accomplish goals. As I was building the membership for ValdostaConnect and as Heyawl.com was being promoted all day, I learned that you can’t force, hype, or cheer lead people into getting together, no matter how good the intentions. Early on I realized that it does no good to send out a bunch of emails to strangers asking them to join the site. Most people ignore emails like that (even if it’s about creating something special in their community).
As I paid attention to Black Crow media’s promotion of Heyawl, I learned that advertising all day long also is not the formula for getting people to sign up. A social network’s success really does depend on word of mouth from good family and friends. ValdostaConnect currently has over 6,400 members; however, members have sent out almost 29, 000 membership invitations.
Last week I went back to check out Heyawl.com and I saw that the site was down, and this message was posted, “Bye-Yawl, Heyawl.com, has been disabled!…Thanks!” I am not bringing this to your attention to make fun of Black Crow. I did so to really bring home the point in order for ValdostaConnect™ to stay online and be productive beyond friendly online chat, messaging, and comments. Each member has to catch hold of the vision for this site which is social and business networking to help each other accomplish life goals. Look at the shape of this economy, we should lend each other a hand when possible. Even if you have a good job or nice house, what can you do to help your family and friends? I tell you that doing something as simple as passing along information can help.
I tell you that “I put on for my city” but as I see people who open up businesses, put on programs and events, bring entertainment to the area, unfortunately sometimes I don’t see the support necessary to keep those things going. Some call this “Valdosta Mentality”. I say that some seem to disqualify things that come from Valdosta. For instance if Brian McKnight comes to Valdosta, we will pack out Wild Adventures, but would we do the same for Dilya Mckinney, a native and great singer/song writer. If not, then I say that this is like not supporting the home team until the home team makes it to the state or national championship. I hope that you support Dilya now, because I believe she will make it big in the future (she’s very persistent like that).
Did Black Crow media disqualify me or ValdostaConnect™ simply because it was home grown? I can’t answer that, I’m sure it was nothing personal but unlike other companies Black Crow Media is established locally and does a lot of great things in the community, and I definitely wish them success. ValdostaConnect’s success and Heyawl’s demise (verdict still out they may just be reorganizing) shows that one person can do something special, even when an entire company has tried and not succeeded. I don’t have staff, I don’t have the means to advertise all day, but I do believe that God can help you accomplish great things. However, God does not want you to be selfish but to help others when you can.
To help members understand what it means to network, I have created a new section just to teach people how to connect for success. I hope that we become a strong online community that looks out for one another and not just a place to log on and chat with friends.
Sincerely,
