When building the userbase of a site I managed, I found that the largest growth periods were caused by events largely out of my control: the attraction of socia

When building the userbase of a site I managed, I found that the largest growth periods were caused by events largely out of my control: the attraction of social super-nodes. First, someone started participating who had a massive following on YouTube, and basically jetissoned over his entire auidence to our site. That doubled our traffic overnight. A few weeks later, someone with influence in a massive forum community posted something about us, and that was an even larger traffic boost. Essentially, people from that forum site started spending their time on our site. Putting email scrapers and all that stuff to get people to spread word about you is nothing compared to what a few social super-nodes can do for you. Once you attract those people to start evangelizing your product, you have increasing chances to attract even more super nodes. The problem is attracting those super nodes in the first place. Build something that people can form an opinion about. Super nodes want to put their hat on something, their seal of approval. Generic does not get approval, I assure you. Stand for something, and imbue your product with that ethos. As sparse as reddit looks, you can bet that there's something identifiable about that site.