Synopsis:<p>I started http://www.leapfm.com about a month ago just as a side project for fun. It was initially a project for me to try out some new learned features and techniques in Ruby on Rails. Albeit, I started to see a bit of value in the idea itself and have continued to develop it and gather feedback.<p>After reaching the front on Hacker News I was provided with awesome feedback and my first 20 users. However, after the hype subsided those users don't seem to be coming back :/.<p>Now with any online community, the content is driven by the users. Which means the websites success is driven by the users. Imagine Facebook with only 20 users it would be a pretty boring place. And that's the dilemma I'm facing.<p>So, what are some ways to get more users?<p>As the only way this website will be truly a place users wanna' come back to is if there is new content being uploaded consistently.
I'm in the same boat as you. :)<p>(I launched <a href="http://sideprojectors.com" rel="nofollow">http://sideprojectors.com</a> about a week ago)<p>I'm planning to write up some of the things I've learned, but..<p>1. I've learned that it is important to remember that "marketing" or call it "growth-hacking" is going to be a grind work.<p>2. I read this over and over again each week - <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/46525/slowly-i-turnedstep-stepinch-inch" rel="nofollow">http://www.fastcompany.com/46525/slowly-i-turnedstep-stepinc...</a><p>3. Look out for good forums - reddit is good. But in your case, I guess you'll have to search for good music forums and start connecting with people!<p>4. Continue to improve your site in the mean time - little features here and there.<p>5. Twitter - I'm just finding out, Twitter is a great way to connect with people.<p>Hope that helps a little!
I don't know much about the target market, but I would try and get people passionate about promoting their favorite artists/songs to this site.<p>You could find forums for specific music categories (electronic, hip-hop, rap etc) and try driving traffic from there to leapfm by posting links to top songs from the category. You could also try and get them to upvote music of the specific category.<p>You can target Facebook fan pages of artists that have songs posted on leapfm. Try and get the fans to Share the link and upvote the artist on the site.
Get active on social media (it may be hard, but is necessary). To get started read this: <a href="http://www.quicksprout.com/2013/08/15/7-simple-yet-effective-social-media-tactics-you-should-leverage-today/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Quicksprout+%28Quick+Sprout%29" rel="nofollow">http://www.quicksprout.com/2013/08/15/7-simple-yet-effective...</a>
What's your keyword strategy? What's your keyword market? How much of it are you covering? (let me tell you - 0%).<p>Accept - in terms of content your website is pretty crappy.
That's a starting point!
Roll up your SEO sleeves and start working.<p>By the way what does you little website do? I looked at it 10 times and I still have no idea.
The Reddit founders would make fake accounts, post stories, and randomly comment on them. Also, you could trying giving your friends gift cards to be active on the site.