I just signed up to hear Ning co-founder Gina Bianchini talk about building a great brand. Now there is a girl who knows how to generate freshness. When I met Ning for the first time, I honestly didn’t get it. I thought it was a lame excuse for a blogging platform, but now that I’ve seen the power of Ning, I’m a total convert.
Once you’ve built a network (just go to Ning.com and they’ll take it from there), here are some awesome community building strategies you can do with it. Enjoy!
oh Use it as your main blogging platform. It’s much easier and much more interactive than WordPress or Blogger.
oh Use it to build a mailing list. Once you’ve captured the signups, you can submit your group information (only valuable and awesome information, please note…girls don’t spam).
oh Use it to learn interesting things about your groupies. You can create your own login page and ask whatever you want from your readers to grant them access to the page. Think about what you need to know from your audience, but keep it short and simple or they’ll just disappear.
oh Use it as a portal for your conference calls and seminars. Have your participants connect and chat in real time about what they are learning. Use the platform to distribute flyers or provide images for discussion. Let your users hang out after your discussion so they can connect with each other.
oh Use it to post events, discussions, and create subgroups. It’s so easy to manage your page administration, my pug is creating his own kibble boycott site.
oh Use it to organize a competition! Get people to sign up and add content, videos, images, or whatever you want to compete for a prize. It’s a great way to find followers and encourage user-provided content.
oh Crashing other Ning Par-tay’s. I’ve joined a bunch of Ning-based social networks to connect with women entrepreneurs and others in the marketing profession. We share ideas, have geek-out discussions about branding, and often answer questions and comment on blog posts. The BEST part is that many of the other social groups allow you to post your blog posts to their networks. The exposure is invaluable and is a great way to connect with new clients, partners and mentors.
If you’re not already using this awesome tool, drop what you’re doing, put the cat down and head over to Ning.com to start building your tribe and join other tribes you like. Here’s a great group you’ll definitely want to join…mine!
