February 2010 Blog Posts (20)

Congrats to Hugh and Harringay Online

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…

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Added by Laura on February 26, 2010 at 2:33pm — 1 Comment

Ning Networks 101: A Guide to Creating a Thriving Online Social Network

Ning Networks are "mini" Facebooks for different topics. They are social networks created around a central hobby, interest, lifestyle, etc... It's best to keep a "Facebook" attitude in mind when creating your network. In this post I'll show you the key steps to setting up and maintaining a thriving Ning network.

The Setup

Domain Name: The best domain name for your network is keyword1forum.com or keyword1keyword2forum.com Remember to also buy…

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Added by Peter Moorman on February 25, 2010 at 12:11pm — 26 Comments

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

Added by Richard Barnett on February 25, 2010 at 8:08am — 2 Comments

The importance of saying "Welcome"!

Take 1:

One night, you go to a party in a place you haven't been to before. You enter the house and everybody is going about their business... you go in, have a drink get some food and still nobody talks to you... eventually, you leave.

Take 2:

One night, you go to a party in a place you haven't been to before. You enter and, no sooner have you finished opening the door you are greeted by someone,… Continue

Added by Manny Hernandez on February 23, 2010 at 3:59pm — 5 Comments

Questions? Get Speedy Answers!

As you may know, Premium Support is one of the premium services we offer, which allows you to get quick turnaround for questions on your Ning Network. We offer three levels of support for various needs, from 24 hours to 4 for urgent issues. While we try to answer everyone's questions efficiently and reliably, we make it a priority to answer our Premium Support holders first. You can see a quick comparison of our Premium Support… Continue

Added by Christina on February 23, 2010 at 3:30pm — 5 Comments

(How) do you talk to your Members?

Thomas Knoll writes a brief but meaningful post with one simple tip: talk to your customers.

Now, I'd replace customers with members as it relates to Ning Creators, but the concept still stands. Specifically, Thomas points out the importance of finding out when and where your members are when using your Ning Network (product). And, what are they doing immediately… Continue

Added by Laura on February 22, 2010 at 12:59pm — 3 Comments

Explain your network search system to members

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… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on February 20, 2010 at 6:26am — 1 Comment

NC for Hire Want More Traffic? Add Passionate Content.

I stumbled upon a very interesting type of content, today. I had a client request a custom design that is similar to thisis50.com. This is not the first time I've received this request, by far. Beats the heck out of me, but a lot of people love the design. I think mostly, they can't see beyond the popularity of this particular site. I think they think, if I have a design like thisis50, I'll get a 1/2 million members, too. But, that's beside the point.

I took a long hard look at… Continue

Added by Jen on February 19, 2010 at 8:30pm — 10 Comments

Two New Insight Programs

Today on the Ning Blog we highlighted a couple of new programs we think will add to the great insights we see here on Ning Creators. Take a look at the post for more information about these programs. I've included a quick recap below as well:

The Network Creator Council Program - This program is made up of a group of active Network Creators like yourself with whom we…

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Added by Garnor Morantes on February 19, 2010 at 11:39am — 3 Comments

Online Community Report interview: Jordan Williams, REI

"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…

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Added by Laura on February 18, 2010 at 11:32am — No Comments

Ning is headed to SXSW — let us know if you'll be there, too!

We're excited to be heading to Austin, TX in March for the SXSW Interactive conference, March 12-16. While we're there, we'll have a booth on display at the SXSW Tradeshow during the day, and will be sponsoring the {RV}IP Lounge at night throughout SXSW Interactive.

While we're in Austin, we'd also love to meet up with any Network Creators that are either attending, or… Continue

Added by Laura on February 16, 2010 at 2:25pm — 4 Comments

Greetings, friend! I'm a Creators community manager.

I’m new here. I wanted to simply stand up and say hello. I join Laura as a fellow community manager on the Creators Network. Like Laura, I’m here to help Creators with their creations: providing tips on building Ning Networks, encouraging folks to get creative and improve things, and pointing out ways people can manage and grow their Ning Networks.

I have a fair amount of technical knowledge, although if you bust out some elaborate CSS, I will probably have to…

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Added by Eric Suesz on February 10, 2010 at 5:30pm — 14 Comments

Valentine's Day promotion code from RedEnvelope.com

Valentine's Day is fast approaching - February 14th is just around the corner! For those of you who have dinner reservations, Valentine's flowers, teddy bears and diamonds already prepared, good for you. The rest of us need to scramble a bit.

Our friends at RedEnvelope have given us a… Continue

Added by Mariko on February 10, 2010 at 11:30am — 2 Comments

Excellent results so far

Just thought I would update those of you who have shared some helpful thoughts with me. The kickoff date for my church page was Feb 1. Now have 96 members and conversations are happening, three groups formed, I am being asked to teach a class on how to use, etc, etc. I am very pleased. My other site for the community that I live in has 55 members; it has a different feel. No groups formed and it appears that most will be lurkers rather than participants..sorry to see that. oh, well.

Added by Chuck Parrish on February 10, 2010 at 6:33am — 1 Comment

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… Continue

Added by Laura on February 9, 2010 at 10:30am — 3 Comments

How to Conduct a Survey on a Ning Network

We recently concluded a very successful online survey of our members on our social network for people interested in finance and investing, and would like to share with other Ning creators why we did it, how we went about doing it, and what we learnt about our network.

Let's start off by explaining why we did it. We…

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Added by DC on February 5, 2010 at 2:00am — 7 Comments

Jim Burke on finding your niche and collaborating with your members

Jim Burke, High School English teacher and Ning Network Creator, recently won the 2009 Edublog Award for Best Educational Use of a Social Networking Service. When I came across this article announcing the Edublog Award, I was interested to hear what inspired Jim to create… Continue

Added by Courtenay on February 4, 2010 at 4:00pm — 5 Comments

Social Media Week

It's Social Media Week (#smw)!

What does that mean? "Social Media Week conferences take place simultaneously in multiple cities around the world. The aim of each event is to advance uses of social media in the corporate, public and non-profit sectors."

Specific cities participating include Toronto,… Continue

Added by Laura on February 3, 2010 at 12:30pm — 1 Comment

DESIGN TRICKS #3: Swapping the Main Page Left and Center Columns

Welcome to the third in a series of Ning Creators blog posts focusing on simple design tricks you can use on your network.

Trick #3: Swapping the Main Page Left and Center Columns

The following code, used on Enrique Iglesias's official community, will flip the order of the left and center columns on your network's Main page.

Just visit the "Appearance" area inside the "Manage" tab, then paste the following… Continue

Added by Kyle Ford on February 2, 2010 at 1:30pm — 7 Comments

Active Network Management

Tom Humbarger has written a fascinating read on the importance of active management to the success of an online community.

One of the most interesting sections to me is the Google Analytics snippet. We don't often get to compare our network metrics to others. In a year and a half, the group grew from 0 to 4,000 members, and in the final full… Continue

Added by Laura on February 1, 2010 at 3:00pm — 5 Comments