Addicted to Facebook and MySpace? Certainly anyone who indulges in social networking-spending almost 6 hours a day updating their status, sharing videos and playing bookmarked games-would agree that such sites are on top of the list of hottest websites today. In fact, there are around five million accounts per social networking site, which tend to double up for every single person that will create several accounts. Imagine the hits these social networking sites earn in a day; no wonder advertisers and other websites tag themselves along for exposure. People congratulate the founders of these websites for their success, their business success to be exact. Inspiring isn't it? Now consider this: you can make your own social networking site. I know it doesn't sound very encouraging at the moment, but if you'll decide to learn how to build a social networking website, maybe someday you'll surpass the greatness of your favorite online community.

Before getting your hands to work, set first your site's objectives. Your objective will dictate the design and content of your preferred website. There should be a reason why you want to build a social networking site. It's just the same thing as creating goals for a specific endeavor. Maybe you want to create a web space for your church organization, to improve individual participation and to establish an internet presence. Whatever the reason may be, your social networking site should stick to it.

The next step on how to build a social networking website is to choose a good platform provider. There are several website builders that specialize in social networking such as Ning and KickApps. You need to sign-up for one to get started. You can choose a do-it-yourself website package if you want to start from a scratch and give the pages a personal touch. They also offer pre-designed templates and tools which can be customized according to preferences. Add the necessary messaging and profile tools to your social networking site if you want to do a copycat of your favorite online community. There are endless options available for your site. Blogging, photo, audio and video uploads are just examples of site features that you can use.

Look for a platform that has a large, if not unlimited, storage and unrestricted bandwidth for your multimedia content. With these you can create a seamless, sophisticated social networking site without having your members complain on poor uploading processes. A large web space can also be used in creating widgets and applets.

If you want to have an ad-free social networking site, just inform your platform provider. Initially, your website is a hosted, ad-supported web space. Deactivating the ads will apparently be charged. Also, if you chose to run your own ads, a monthly charge will be applied at around $10 to $20.

Actually, there are several ways on how to build a social networking website. The platform provider may require you to download their software program from which you will create your website. So far, the most common way (and the easiest) is to create the website within their online portal which will take some minutes.