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Success Stories (28)

Every day new network creators come to our platform and start their own social website. There are so many of us today that we decided to tell more about our members. And want to share with you a story about Bechy, MathClub Virtual.

Tell us a little about yourself and your community.

I am Colombian, a teacher of mathematics, passionate about virtual environments to teach and learn.

How did you decide to create your network? What is your community for you?

MathClub was initially a face-to-face math club, formed by students of the Educational Institution No 2 in which I work. The club grew and students from other institutions expressed their desire to join. Not being able to gather everyone in a physical space, I decided to create Virtual MathClub in NING. Today we have thousands of members from more than 20 countries. For my MathClub it is my virtual house, and all its members form a great family.

What can’t you imagine your community without?

I can not imagine my community without the FORUMS, I love helping students who have difficulty with math or with some problem that they have not been able to solve, that is why we have several forums of advising.

Do you have interesting stories or people in your community? Tell us about them

The first foreign member of our network was Professor Ali Amgaad of Morocco. I keep a lot of gratitude because it motivated me a lot and gave me ideas for the community. He became my best friend, although I only know him virtually.

With Professor John Jairo Escobar of Ibagué, we developed a project for the learning of Multivariate Calculus which was developed in a GROUP created in Virtual MathClub, this experience was awarded by the RIBIE in the category of educational experiences in higher education.

Thanks to MathClub Virtual I was selected in 2011 to attend the ICT Training for Colombian Teachers in Incheon, South Korea. I have been a speaker at mathematics conferences and educational informatics in countries such as Spain, Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina. In 2015 I was invited by UNESCO to the International Conference on ICT and Post-2015 Education, in Qingdao, China.

One of the activities we do in our community is the preparation of eleventh-grade students for State tests through online workshops. Last year this experience received the National Award for Digital Social Mobilization of the ICT Ministry.

Can you give us some tips how to build successful community?

I think we should do everything possible to answer members in the chat, in forums and messages. Send messages to all members informing about the achievements and the new features that are incorporated.

Tell us a little about your experience with NING?

NING has been too important in my professional life, it has taken me further than I ever dreamed. It’s nice to be a teacher, not only of the students who assign me in the institution I work for but of thousands of students who come to MathClub Virtual in search of support in mathematics. And it is also very pleasant to meet and share experiences with professors from different countries.

I want to take this opportunity to say: Thank you NING.

Want to share your story? Write us at hello@ning.com

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What's new: №3

Hi creators!


Wonder what has happened with our community lately? Read our latest materials:

  1. Community Story with Tim Grimes, GoldProspectorsSpace
  2. 10 tips to drive more blog traffic from Linkedin
  3. New discussions in NING Business Club and Monetization with NING groups 
  4. How to choose the best digital marketing channel for your business 

Have something you want to share with us? Post your thoughts in comments!

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NC for Hire

If you have been on Creators for a while you may remember my post about Survey Earth in a Day back in 2012.  This is a GLOBAL Community event for our Land Surveyor Community.

NING-POWERED PROJECT: Survey Earth in a Day

Well, this year will be our 6th year remeasuring the entire planet as a community, in a single day.

What Is Survey Earth in a Day?

On the day of the solstice June 20, 2017, geospatial professionals around the world and members of Land Surveyors United (a global support network for land surveyors) will be simultaneously recording survey grade GNSS/GPS data from thousands of points around the globe, in order to promote awareness of and a better public understanding of the surveying profession. Measurements made on this day will serve as comparative data from prior events and to expand upon the database of logged points.


So WHAT happens on Survey Earth in a Day?
On the day of the solstice June 20, 2017, geospatial professionals around the world and members of Land Surveyors United (a global support network for land surveyors) will be simultaneously recording survey grade GNSS/GPS data from thousands of points around the globe, in order to promote awareness of and a better public understanding of the surveying profession. Measurements made on this day will serve as comparative data from prior events and to expand upon the database of logged points.

This is just an example of what you can do with a Global Community!

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NC for Hire
In order to build a sustainable community, you must get to a place where your members feel comfortable and think of your place built for them when sharing that photo or tip or guide on the community you built for them. Progressive enhancement is the human way to increase relevance of your community for search engines, social graphs, bots, algorithms and yes, humans. You can do this for your community by channeling the traffic back into the network and reintroducing relevant content to those new members and visitors which might find it and the dialogue which occurs useful even, five years in the future..
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NC for Hire
Tips left for other Ning Creators get buried with time, so I developed a method to resurface those good ones for another round of help. A while back I showed you over 200 Ning tips that I had scraped out of my own profile discussions dating back to 2007. There was quite a bit of garbage in there so I have gone through those and picked out around 110 tips which are still relevant and have compiled them into a collection for you. You can simply learn something new every day from these tips alone. So, if you think you have done all you can do to make your network the best it can be, i am here to show you that you still have much to do.
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Business Fights Poverty was established in March of 2008 to pioneer new ways of fighting poverty utilizing economic and business opportunities by groups and individuals. Founder and Director, Zahid Torres-Rahman discovered and implemented the perfect platform for his idea through a chance conversation and a day’s worth of work.
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As the year comes to a close, it's a great time to look to a few Ning Networks that have had great success throughout 2012 for inspiration. We asked Network Creators on our Creators Network to let us know how their year went, and we received some exciting stories of success and lessons learned.
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THE DREAM OF SPIRITUAL MEDIA IS BECOMING A REALITY

 

This Chart Shows Visitors Per Month for the Past 24 Months, as of July 8, 2011:

 

 

The total number of unique visitors during the past 24 months is 14,045,305

The total number of page impressions during the past 24 months is 17,034,634

 

SOURCE: eTracker Analytics


WEEKLY PERFORMANCE:

Chosen Timeframe: 07/02/2011 - 07/08/2011


 

JUNE 2011 PERFORMANCE:

June Visitors: 1,476,267

June Impressions: 1,729,074

 

 

JUNE PERFORMANCE:

Chosen Time frame: 06/01/2011 - 06/30/2011

 

 


YEARLY PERFORMANCE:

We launched in March of 2009


NOTE: Halfway through 2011 we have already exceeded our entire 2010 traffic volume!

 

THANK YOU!


 
Visit Global One TV


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MY OWN SPACE 360.COM


I have been running Mos 360 for over 2 years now and have enjoyed every minute of it.

The site is a general social hub for all types of people and all types of interest, I started it on a whim one day at work when I was bored, I had come across this site called NING which I had never heard of before, but it said start your own site free !!!.

I had spent several years on Yahoo 360 which I had enjoyed for a while but had become unhappy with because of trolls and foul mouthed idiots, so I thought I will take the plunge and have a go (I had never done anything on computers other than surf), So I started MY OWN SPACE, this was very rough and ready to start with and may have looked more childlike than adult !!! lol, but it soon became more structured and with the help of my new admin team we have built it into what I think is a pretty damn good and safe place to be.

Today we hit a BIG milestone for us , and that was reaching 1000 members !!!, This is small compared to many sites but it means the world to me and everyone associated with the site.

Getting back to the title of this blog THE REASON I HAVE STAYED WITH NING , This is because without the great tools and easy applications we would never have got to this milestone. Dont get me wrong I have not always agreed with all that Ning has done and have done my share of moaning, but at the end of the day, Ning is head and shoulders above all the opposition and that is why I am happy to pay now.

May MY OWN SPACE 360.COM and Ning long work together.

Pete (Sexy Evertonian)

Creator of Mos 360.

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YAAAAAAAAAAAAY 1000 Members!

I've finally hit over 1000 members *does a little dance*!
Im so happy and excited! Im actually on 1162 to be exact :D So chuffed I needed to brag ;)
Im starting to branch out now too...I've found a company that makes really affordable websites so Im getting a new directory made...I have a directory section already on my website where I sell add space for business's .... I make some okay money from that...it all depends how much effort I put into it..for instance..one night of emailing and I made R1000! So cool!
So I am now going to make an independent directory with awesome features for my clients and connect it to my NING network as well and a new online shop that I'll link too...so things are finally starting to grow and Im slowly starting to actually earn an income from my site :)
Happy days!
And on a last note of my gushing excitement......Im soooooo excited for the new premium options too!! I'm going to get to save some money (I was already a premium member) AND get more features!
Im counting the days to the swap over!
Just in case you want to have a little look see at my NING baby, its Mommalicious Mammas :)
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My Modern Met has been running their own ads since 2008. By achieving high growth and traffic to their network, as well as creating high quality content, they’ve been able to secure deals with top tier ad networks and achieve CPMs in the double digits. Recently, these ad networks have brought to them site-specific buys and unique sponsorship opportunities.

Hi, I'm Alice from My Modern Met. I was asked to share my story on how we've managed to make money on our Ning network. Though our story is unique, there are common experiences we as Ning Creators will all face. Particularly if you're going to try and make money through advertising, I'd love to share with you some things we've learned along the way.

There are a whole bunch of ways to make money on your Ning network by advertising which include banner advertising with Google Adsense or ad networks, contextual advertising, affiliate sales (cost-per-click, cost-per-action, cost-per-sale), direct advertising and sponsorships. CPM (or cost per thousand) banner advertising is traffic driven, the more people you have looking at your banner ad, the more money you can make. Cost per thousand means that for every 1,000 impressions (or eyeballs), you get a certain amount of money which can range from a few cents to double digit dollars.

When I first started My Modern Met, we focused our attention on building up the community and providing interesting content. We started as a private, invite-only site and we took off the Google Adsense ads immediately, though looking back we probably could have kept them on. The reason we took them off was because our site was a little too broad, meaning we didn't have such a specific niche that Adsense was working effectively. That being said, even if you're not making a lot of money in the early stages, you want people to get used to seeing advertising on your site and making some money is better than none. We decided that it was better to use up the web real estate with interesting content. We built up our core community through friends and family. After about three months, we opened up My Modern Met to the public. Our content started to spread virally around the web, bringing in tens of thousands of people a day. At that point, we knew we were big enough to approach ad networks.

Through our own research and by talking to people at conferences, we found a bunch of ad networks that would fit with us and found out their criteria for getting accepted. We knew that we had to reach a critical mass of unique visitors and pageviews before we could even approach them. Once we hit those milestones, we reached out to them and were able to secure deals.

We manage our ads through Google Ad Manager. (Here's a good article from Hongkiat on how to set it up if you're looking into managing your ad networks or even your direct buys.)

With time and increased traffic, we were able to partner with more premium ad networks. After two years, we're now in the position where we're receiving site specific buys and sponsorship opportunities.

Here are our top ten tips on how to make money through advertising:

1. Be patient - Don't expect to partner with ad networks until you reach a minimum threshold (number of unique visitors or pageviews).
2. Research ad networks - Find out which ones best fit with your Ning network. There's a wide range of ad networks for particular niches like luxury and tech.
3. Be persistent - If you get denied from an ad network, don't give up. Approach them again after a certain period of time. Legitimacy comes with increased traffic over time.
4. Have high quality content, find your niche - If possible create original content that others would want to link to and spread.
5. Decide on your business model - Banners advertising works well for sites with high traffic, while smaller, more targeted niche sites work well with Google Adsense or affiliate sales.
6. Grow your community - What sets your site apart from blogs is that you have engaged members. Make that one of your selling points when you approach advertisers or ad networks.
7. Build traffic - Don't overlook the power of Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon.
8. Use social media tools like Facebook and Twitter - These will also help you spread content and build up your community.
9. Get to know other Ning Creators - Find out what works for them and see if you can apply it to your network.
10. Get outside your comfort zone - Attend conferences and network. You may want to just sit at your desk and work on your site but getting out there into the real world will help you see if you're headed in the right direction, find new ideas and identify trends. This is invaluable.

I hope this information helps. Good luck to all of you Ning Creators out there and if you have any specific questions, feel free to contact me at alice@mymodernmet.com. Thanks!

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Fellow Network Creators,

I am writing to ask you to rally for fellow Ning network creators. We support each other here, lets also help each other get funding!
Both WaggleForce and the nonprofit I founded and run Neighbors for Neighbors, are in the running to win $250,000 from Pepsi this month as part of the Pepsi Refresh Project. Voting started Monday, and will continue through March. You can vote once a day for each of our networks and nine other ideas you like. Judging is simple; the two projects that get the most votes win funding. VOTE FOR US!

WaggleForce is a Ning Network that helps members collaborate with each other to create career clubs and get communities back to work. Vote for Waggle Force

Neighbors for Neighbors operate neighborhood-centric community-generate social networks that serve as a soundboard for voice and a springboard for action. Unlike Facebook, Neighbors for Neighbors connect people who live, work ans serve in their neighborhood with the purpose of brining people together offline to do things with and for each other. Vote for Neighbors for Neighbors
If you know of any other Ning Networks that are in the competition, please leave a comment so we can support all network creators!
With much appreciation,
Joseph!
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The BBC ran a great article about social networks holding local politicians accountable, and it features Harringay Online, a Ning Network by Hugh Flouch.

"The website was used to organise a petition to visit every local street likely to be affected by knock-on traffic.

"The council were just not listening to the community", he said. "By the end of that year we had 500 members. Now we are touching 2,500."

It's great to see Network Creators receiving recognition for their efforts, and the real-world change that comes out of Ning Networks. We hope to read more stories like this!



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Ning Network wins web award

Thought you would be interested to know that the site I run just won 'Best Healthy Lifestyle Website' in the Hantsweb awards.The awards are for sites in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (UK). What I thought was great was that all the other sites were created by web designers etc but Ning was judged better than them!!http://newforesttransition.ning.com/profiles/blogs/food-challenge-site-wins

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Recently I have worried a lot about the network search system on my Ning network.

We have technical problems that may be inherent to all social networks, not just our Ning networks. The technology for searching inside networks that have new information added continuously is not very advanced, and this is general, not just at Ning.

So now I have written a blog post trying to explain -- in simple language -- how the search system works on a Ning network, for the benefit of my members.

See:

http://cooperative.ning.com/profiles/blogs/our-website-search-system

I have also described a couple of alternatives to using the Ning search (which I like very much, when it works).

I would be happy if other Network Creators can adapt my explanation to their own situation. And I would be happy for any advice on how to improve the explanation I have given.

Thanks, Peter

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"For me I see how easy it is to get caught up in the exciting side of the business, e.g. the technology, the platform, the shiny, bleeding edge new feature. But from my experience the way to make an impact is absolutely on the strategic planning and organizational development side of things. It’s not sexy and it’s certainly not easy, but ultimately the real impact if you work on the brand side is found through fundamental organizational transformation."


So says Jordan Williams, Manager of Digital Engagement at REI. I completely agree that this is the more difficult and time consuming aspect of community management, whether on a national level or smaller group. :)


One of the great features of Ning, is that creating networks is easy and free, which means you can create test Ning Networks. This is something I always encourage, to provide a place to test out changes to design or format. In terms of planning and organization, the test network can also be used to scope out goals for the main network, brainstorm or discuss issues that come up. An alternative is to have a private Group on the primary Ning Network for this, though that provide a bit less freedom in testing ideas.


I'd argue that representing a major brand like REI brings its own challenges and expectations. However I encourage all to read this interview of a seasoned Community Manager!



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Well-designed Ning Networks

We've collected Ning Networks that have inspiring design here in the past. Here's a post on Socialbrite, where LauraO shares some of her favorites. The collection includes Ning Networks focused on commercial efforts, those that are non-profit based, as well as a couple making best use of the Groups feature.

Some will be familiar, but there are definitely a few Ning Networks new to me!


What do you think of those mentioned? Which do you think should be joining as a best-designed Ning Network?

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