How do you promote your social network

Hi,

I've just launched a new Drupal social network (http://drupalsn.com) and i'm now actively promoting the site, but i'm hoping to spark some debate as to how everyone out there promotes their social networking sites so we can share ideas and strategies and see which ones work best!

My personal view is social networks can be hard to promote, because you obviosuly want to drive traffic to your site but you also want sign ups. Does traffic automatically mean sign ups or do you need a more specific strategy?

here's a few things i'm considering/using:

• Forum write ups on related sites - drupal.org forum write springs to mind and i guess any sites related to the content of your site.
  This seems to be a good way to get initial feedback and testers but may not get the site moving proper.
• Article or content/blog writing - this to me is a key area for SEO, writing related content to help your page ranking as well as build interest about your site.
  Problem here is many social networks may not have scope for articles so may find it hard to fit articles of content in and much of the content maybe user driven.
• Links swap/partners - this is a simple technique to build partnerships with other related sites but i'm not sure how effective it really is?
• Submit your code to Drupal - this is something i'm just coming to not just for site promotion but i also feel i now have enough knowledge to be able to give something back to Drupal for all its given me (bit cheesy i know), has anyone found this as an effective means of promotion?
• Showcase sites - submitting your site to showcase sites or flickr or youtube (if you have the content) i've heard can be a good promotion tool.
• Paid advertising - for most of us on small budgets this is a last resort and something that really needs planning as there are so many options out there, how do you choose where to put your money?
• Offline promotions - again may need some funds behind this but i've heard it can be useful for some niches.

Ok i've probably bored you to death already, but be great if we can spark some debate here, it's something i'm fairly new to and very interested in as i guess everyone who runs a social network is.

cheers
Tom