This week I want to talk about designing main pages using “paneling”. I don’t know where I saw the term or if I made it up, lol! However, it fits. What I’m talking about is the use of text boxes as the primary focus of your site rather than the conventional module feeds.
Now we all know module feeds demonstrate engaged participation, current activity, and automate the feed of content on your Ning. It’s one of the distinguishing characteristics of the platform. I think the theory behind it is social display- people are more likely to join a site that’s happening, respond to media where action is occurring, be impressed with the quantity of social features, and Ning has set it up so that anyone can set this up and maintain it easily. Along those lines, the formula works. We break away from the static website design where the tendency is to make it all about us, and let our communities drive it so it is all about them. The casual web browser visiting your site sees a multitude of things they might want to dive into, maybe one that hits home, and knows if they sign up they can be a part of that show.
Recently, a new Ning Creator asked what the best way to get started with a visually appealing site when you don’t yet have many members of activity. The conspicuous absence of community driven social media can actually work against you. The site can look undeveloped, unpopular, and unfulfilling to the prospective member. I offer the same advice to veteran Ning creators. Often, what activity they have fails to paint the picture of their site as they intend it. We see all these features and project all the awesome things members can do with them, yet one of the biggest challenges I hear is how to get people to engage through them. Module feeds alone can simply fail to impress.
I talk a lot about a paradigm shift from “social network” to “social media environment”. At the very least, I recommend showcasing dynamic media more prominently. Things like photos and videos are more visually appealing than written content. They can be more attractive for viewing, engaging on, and something that members can look forward to sharing. A picture says a thousand words. Try writing out a pitch that your site is going to be a place for a lot of people and see what kind of response you get for that. Try posting a picture of a lot of people having a great time, and you might get the idea through to people better. Uploading a photo or video is super quick and easy. A lot of people aren’t extroverted enough to get into writing. Not knowing what to say, being self-conscious about their writing ability, or simply seeing the modules as unfamiliar- they might check it out or even sign up, and then not really get involved.
So you’ve got module feeds for photos and videos. It would seem like these are sufficient, but in my opinion often don’t get the job done. I think you can get better results by uploading a large photo or embedding a select widescreen video as featured content. With that you get instant design credibility because the quality of media is often better than anything you could do graphically or with written text alone. In particular, I recommend anything that shows “people” because that subconsciously implies “social”.
From there you get all kinds of opportunities to directly influence the culture of community you have in mind. A little supporting text talking about the media, a call to action, and a link through to profile, forum discussion, blog module, etc, can get the job done better. You want to showcase your videos? Then pick the best one you’ve got, write a little about it, propose people comment on it with direct link to where you uploaded it, and invite them to explore your community’s video library. Want to feature a member? Make it all about them by posting a quality photo of them, writing a short bio description or quote, linking to a complimentary interview on your forum, offering a link to read their blog, suggesting people network with them given a link to their profile, or encouraging viewers to meet more members by exploring your community directory.
You get the idea, right? So I do think you can still compliment these more static panels with interspaced module feeds. I like Latest Activity for at least one that captures the essential values that communicates the “live” aspect, maybe one or two others feeding in articles etc. Even then I would adjust settings so that you display only that content you decide to feature. You want to make sure it’s the best quality, represents your niche theme to your satisfaction, and can ensure people will be rewarded with intelligent engagement in the event they do reply and so on.
Yes this is sort of a return to the static webpage design that having a social network was supposed to be a departure from. However, just look at any organization that is investing a lot into their web presence and I bet you’ll see plenty examples of more media intensive control and highly selective social integration. As a Ning creator, you can probably set up an equal or superior quality main page, deliver social applications more intensively, and do a better job of presenting a social network community that’s more about members than most any company out there trying to go social.
Paneling can be done quickly and easily. You can get real creative with it to influence navigation through your site according to where you want people to go, and you can tell them what you want them to do when you get there. It might be something you do once, or something you update periodically every week or month. You can enhance the experience from one page to another- so maybe a photo oriented panel leading to a discussion with a larger version of the photo leading off and followed by content.
You can see an example of this on my Ning Creators group A Social Media Dojo. Instead of straight text in my group’s text box, I have an embedded video, a call to action “Introduce Yourself!”, and a link to my introductory discussion “A more beautiful web is…my online social media environment”. I could probably be a bit more effective with my link in this case because it’s not immediately clear that I’m asking people to select the link other than the fact the text is highlighted. Something simple like “Learn more”, “Read the full article”, “Get started”, can be all you need. When people do click through, I’ve got a discussion with the same video leading off followed by content. They may have watched the video on the group landing page, or jumped through the link and then decide to watch. Altogether I think it shows a little bit of professional social media integration between the group and discussion- and that’s the kind of thing I’m recommending you try for your site’s main page.
Finally, planning your page can be a very fun thing to do! It’s like making a storyboard for a commercial you are about to film. Every once in a while, I will put together a quick mock up of a Ning so creators can get an idea of how paneling could improve their site. I just take a screenshot, convert it to a paint.bmp file, find/size/place photos around, and that’s usually a quick way to get an idea of what the site could look like with a focus on paneling. What I’d like to do now is offer any of you interested to submit your link and I will put together a quick paneling mock up for you right here- as I can get around to it of course. It usually takes me 15-20 minutes to review the network concept and find relevant media to fit in, but I do enjoy it, and you might find what I put together inspires you to take your Ning to another level.
Best, Anthony
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