members - Blogs - Ning Creators Social Network2024-03-29T06:01:44Zhttps://creators.ning.com/blogs/feed/tag/membersFrom the ground up, Ning, Facebook & Your Hustle.https://creators.ning.com/blogs/from-the-ground-up-ning2011-02-12T17:37:08.000Z2011-02-12T17:37:08.000ZSwurvhttps://creators.ning.com/members/Swurv<div><p>I know there have been post on why not to send your users to facebook and I may have mis read or not understood but one thing I know for sure is that we are starting to see more members and people actually blogging more on our site then ever before. In the last 2 days we got 11 people to join. We have been trying hard to control the spam so I would say maybe 2 out of the 11 could be spammers but most we can see that they like our page on facebook. <br />
<br />
Make it simple and put in the work to talk to people who like your page on FB, invite them to join your Ning site. With the new like page profile update you can see and do allot more. Everyone who likes our page we "TRY" to send them a thank you and to check out our NING site. On our ning we ask how did they hear about SwurvRadio and guess what they say :) not myspace....If you don't put in the work to get people to your site stop complaining about nobody coming to your site. I'm personally up at 6am daily promoting, engaging and networking...We are not even close to this is 50 or sites like that but I can see the fruit of my team as well as my labor. <br />
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I can't remember this guys name but he was a great programmer that I met in SF years ago at some apple convention and he said "if you don't break it your not gonna know how to fix it" Basically try everything...look at what other sites are doing and do what they are doing but make it your own. Do it better. Try something different do research on your competitor, google 100 sites like yours and look at what they are doing and see what you can do to stand out. <br />
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When we first started I had over 200 employees and I personally spent more money developing Swurv over that past 6 years than I thought I would. Paying a programmer thousands for a site that never got developed I had to think how can we have some sort of online presence and along came NING. We aggressively put our site together and within days we have almost 2-300 people join and it went nuts from there. But that wasn't because we didn't Hustle. We got out and promoted with flyers and word of mouth and just about anything we could do to get where we are today. I can honestly say I'm almost as excited about The new ning as I was when we first got on the platform. Whatever kind of site you have, if you believe in it...DO NOT WAIT FOR PEOPLE TO COME TO YOUR SITE, MAKE THEM! GO GET EM! BREAK SOMETHING & figure out how to fix it..You might Discover something new.  </p>
<p>I know I'm rambling now but I hope this helps anyone struggling with there site. I always tell my djs "I would rather have 1 really good dj than 35 who don't do <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">Shit</span>" How many ever members you have treat them like they are #1 and they will bring people to your site"</p>
</div>How to export your members to a CSV filehttps://creators.ning.com/blogs/how-to-export-your-members-to2010-04-02T14:00:00.000Z2010-04-02T14:00:00.000ZJoseph Porcellihttps://creators.ning.com/members/JosephPorcelli<div><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Fellow NCs,<br />
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Once a month we do an export of our members and import them into our CRM database. We do this for two reasons:<br /></span>
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">So we have a back up our members locally.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">We run queries against donations made by email and name (we are a non-profit), and based on profile questions answer, invite members to groups and events that might be of interest.</span></li>
</ol>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Here's is how to export your members:<br /></span>
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Log into your network as either the Network Creator or a user with Administrator rights.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Go the Manage tab and under "Manage your members" section click on Members button.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">On the bottom right hand side of the members page click on Export All Member Data (.CSV)</span></li>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Depending on the size of your membership you either be prompted to..<br /></span>
<ul>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">"Click OK to start the export. If you have a lot of members, the process might take a few minutes.",</span></li>
</ul>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Or, if you have lots of members you'll get a message that says..<br /></span>
<ul>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">"Click OK to start the export. We'll send you an email with instructions for downloading the data as soon as it's ready."</span></li>
</ul>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Joseph</span></div>
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</div>The importance of saying "Welcome"!https://creators.ning.com/blogs/the-importance-of-saying2010-02-23T23:59:17.000Z2010-02-23T23:59:17.000ZManny Hernandezhttps://creators.ning.com/members/MannyHernandez<div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Take 1:</span><br />
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.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Take 2:</span><br />
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, bidding you welcome! You are shown where things are (not that you couldn't find the food or the drinks by yourself, but you get the idea...)<br />
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Which party would be more memorable to you?<br />
I hope you answered "2". :)<br />
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This is the basics of the idea behind treating your members as guests in a party where you are the guest. While your network is small, this is a task that you should do yourself.<br />
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There are some networks that are well over 10,000 members in size and still the network creator takes it upon him/herself to greet every new member, but there's a chance this may become a bit overwhelming. So, in cases like these, I am going to recommend you set up a group of members to help you with the task.<br />
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On TuDiabetes (and EsTuDiabetes) we created a Welcome Committee (which later evolved into the Care Team). Nowadays, it's a group of 122 members who take turns to greet new members, show them the link to the <a href="http://creators.ning.com/page/welcome-1">Welcome Center</a> (we call it the New Member Guide) and answer any immediate questions they may have. The group has evolved into a team that comes to the "rescue" if any of our members seem like they are in need of extra support (since ours is a network for people touched by diabetes, health issues appear left and right).<br />
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Typically, members will feel welcomed AND grateful to have entered a space where they were not only alone (clearly in the first party you were not alone, were you?) but they didn't FEEL alone, which is VERY important!<br />
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Here is a video we did inviting people to join in the Welcome Committee and telling them how to go about welcoming new members:<br />
<embed wmode="opaque" src="http://static.ning.com/socialnetworkmain/widgets/video/flvplayer/flvplayer.swf?v=201002091145" flashvars="config=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tudiabetes.org%2Fvideo%2Fvideo%2FshowPlayerConfig%3Fid%3D583967%253AVideo%253A347166%26ck%3D-&video_smoothing=on&autoplay=off&isEmbedCode=1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" scale="noscale" allowscriptaccess="never" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" width="456" height="344"></embed><br />
<small><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.tudiabetes.org/video/video">Find more videos like this on <em>TuDiabetes</em></a></small><br />
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P.S. As you will notice in the video, another way in which a Welcome Team can help you is by keeping an eye on new members.
</div>Explain your network search system to membershttps://creators.ning.com/blogs/explain-your-network-search2010-02-20T14:26:45.000Z2010-02-20T14:26:45.000ZPeter Matthewshttps://creators.ning.com/members/PeterMatthews<div><p>Recently I have worried a lot about the network search system on my Ning network.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
See:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://cooperative.ning.com/profiles/blogs/our-website-search-system">http://cooperative.ning.com/profiles/blogs/our-website-search-system</a><br />
<br />
I have also described a couple of alternatives to using the Ning search (which I like very much, when it works).<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Thanks, Peter<br />
<br /></p>
</div>Low Budget Marketing - Growing Your Online Community Offlinehttps://creators.ning.com/blogs/low-budget-marketing-growing2009-11-25T19:30:00.000Z2009-11-25T19:30:00.000ZBenjamin Brandaohttps://creators.ning.com/members/BenjaminBrandao<div><p>Having members that are excited about helping you grow your community is a huge asset. Besides what Ning has done to provide us with online tools to benefit from our members motivation to form community, What else can be done to take advantage of your members enthusiasm? More then 3000 invitations have been sent by the members of Acoreanos, currently just short of 600 members connected to the <a href="http://acoreanos.ning.com" target="_blank">Azores Islands</a> have joined. That let's me know my community is built around a topic of importance. But I needed a way to reach more members.I have had success reaching new members by making a downloadable flyer that members can print.</p>
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<a href="http://acoreanos.ning.com/forum/attachment/download?id=3167816%3AUploadedFi35%3A4478"><font size="3">Printable flyer.</font></a>
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<a href="http://acoreanos.ning.com/forum/attachment/download?id=3167816%3AUploadedFi35%3A4478"><img src="http://api.ning.com/files/HAVVJu2zjUS3IAK7f-ZvnkUQaStbvhVtJ9210qIO8CEoK43bzwHBva6I6g3-u6YYfCytGzOBGkTOgfu8utFfNS-mFujMWoN0/flyerthumbnail.png" alt="" width="250" height="324"></a>
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<td valign="top" align="left"><br> <font size="2">Providing printable materials for members to post around their communities on message boards, at restaurants, schools, and other real world locations has helped to develop a more diverse base of participants. I have received updates from members who are putting the flyer in the local library, social clubs, art galleries, and ethnic grocers. Several of the most active participants have told me they learned about the community after they saw the flyer I have made available for members of Acoreanos to circulate offline.<br> <br> My primary goal is to connect people with a common cultural bond. Azoreans and their descendants are spread around the globe. As with most ethnic groups there are isolated communities where immigrants have concentrated. I personally do not live in an area with an active Azorean social network, so starting the online network is a way for me to stay connected and grow in cultural pride. The flyer is helping me reach the real world community in hopes of connecting long lost friends and families.</font></td>
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<p>The praise and gratitude I receive from people in similar situations is gratifying and propels me to keep the mission of growing the community. If anyone has other ideas for growing the member base on a small budget, I'd love to hear from you.</p></div>