Many Web 2.0 Apps are under appreciated for their value. Ning is free and easy to participate in. With a little help you can create powerful compelling communities with real and interesting business potential!
Here we will share how powerful communities can be built with just a little time and effort, that give you uncommon business value moving forward.. The basic networking community is powerful, but with developed add ons, it becomes a commerce integrator, relationship manager, and an enterprise of global business portals... Watch it grow, its an exciting adventure!
Here are some simple steps for starting your NING Community: feel free to share links to other articles or best practices
1. Set up your Networking Community on the Ning Platform.. Setting up really only takes a few minutes, but deciding the myriad of options and customizations might take a while.
2. Customize your Network Appearance to represent you, add graphics when its appropriate, but remember the real power in Ning is not in the pretty but the practical value.. sooo step 4 becomes important.
3. Add Content to your website. Add Blog Posts, Music, Photos of interest, Videos.. Create some Forum Discussion topics before you launch and invite some early members to help you chair topics, forums or groups.. Let this take a life of its own, but with people who will support your mission for the community.. Content rules, spam content drains... keep it interesting and relevant for your members, and they will keep in lively because of your shared interest.
The RSS Feed capabilities of Ning are rich for members and groups-- consider bringing some of this in to welcome topics of discussion.
Social Networking minicommunities will help members of other social networks connect-- consider a social networking exchange group for members on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn for example.
4. Invite Members To JOIN the network. Ning makes it easy to invite, and they can easily share or share their network badge from day one! NICE.
5. Syndicate and share organized Group content.. Note that some group content is more easily shared than others (like Best Practices, Brainstorming, Videos, News, Radio Broadcasts, Interviews, Podcasts, Community News. While other groups that may contain more discussion oriented problem solving, or data exchange, less adaptable to open sharing outside your community)
6. Grow SMART. Create your mindshare and grow your network Invite subject matter experts INTO your community who share your values.. Positive attraction in social networking.. its good for everyone.
WE HAVE MORE RESOURCES FOR EACH PHASE COMING SOON BASED UPON INTEREST. However the thing we are most often asked is how to make it all work together, with greater reach, but without so much personal effort. That is practical, wise, and the way Web 2.0 should be in the mainstream. We are creating a community web project to deliberately DOCUMENT each steps in Compelling Community Building to share.. We are also inviting people who want to learn to apply this valuable technique to THEIR business to join in this construction... with some of our experts, to create a really amazing project that is going to bring GLOBAL community GOOD to participants and experience to the COMMUNITY BOARD AND SOCIAL ENGINEERS.
