Low Budget Marketing - Growing Your Online Community Offline

[Benjamin Brandao]

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 Azores Islands 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.

Printable flyer.

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. 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.

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.

[Abelia]

Hi Benjamin, Thank you for your post... All the best, Abelia

[Sandy]

We do something similar on the The Social Woman where we have been distributing flyers etc but I like the idea of a street team and empowering the members to spread the word offline. We've been live since April 19th, 2009 and to date have 650 members which has been mainly word of mouth.

[Benjamin Brandao]

I like the street team idea. I have to get some of my members in P-town and New Bedford to organize something. Acoreanos has been live since April 12, 2009. So about 9 months. I am pleased with the growth... Speaking of growth, The NIng Creators is really growing, I was the 1033 member to join about 4 hours and 40 members ago.

[Manny Hernandez]

The idea of a street team is a very good one! I believe in the power of offline promotion to help grow your network on Ning. After all, everyone who finds benefit in your network will not mind helping you promote it.

How long as your network been in existence? 600 members is what it took us months to grow TuDiabetes to and more than a year what it took us to grow EsTuDiabetes to. So that is to say, you seem to be doing all the right things.

[Leo]

Great Idea, and gives me some ideas to create a section for a "street team" a section where people would be to participate on the promotion of the network.

[Garfield Archivist]

Awesome idea. This is so inspiring. Thanks for sharing it.

[Laura]

This is great! I think it is worthy to highlight that you provide this flyer on the network for your members to print out and also distribute locally.

Laura