Using Ning Communities to Build Traffic and Community

Last time we talked about using forums to build community. Today we’re going to talk about how to use ning communities. They are similar to forums, but have some big differences that if taken advantage of can really explode your reach.

What is a Ning community?

Ning is a huge site that allows people to start their own community without having to do any of the background stuff, like hosting, and programming, and all that stuff.

The rules are changing, but anyone used to be able to create a community there for free. It was a great tool to help build your own community ~ BUT ~ that’s not what we’re talking about today.

We’re going to look for communities within the Ning site that are in our niche, or where our market hangs out. I’m going to use twittermoms as my example throughout this post. It’s the Ning community I spend the most time in, although I could definitely spend more consistent time over there.  Each ning community may be a little different, because there’s different templates you can use, and you can customize what you want to show up on your front page, but there are going to be some parts that are on most if not all the sites.

Let’s look at the really killer features of a Ning community:

Main Page:

The main page is where you’ll see what’s going on across the community. This is all MEMBER CREATED content. That’s important because as a member your content can easily make it to the front page ~ because the front page features NEW content. So each time you create new content, whether it’s a comment in a group or discussion, or a new blog post it shows up on the front page for everyone to see.

Twittermoms has over 25 THOUSAND members. So your front page content ~ even if it’s as simple as participating in a discussion or forum shows up for everyone coming to the front page. Talk about powerful.

Members ~ you’ll also find a place to connect with other community members on the front page. On this site it’s on the sidebar ~ says “members” you can click the “view all” link and it will show all the members of the community. You can spend a few minutes each day looking at member’s profiles and adding a few friends. The more you connect and reach out in this type of community the better.

I believe Ning communities are much easier to create real relationships and friendships because they offer so many more ways to get to know people, and so many additional ways to interact.

Let’s look at them:

My page: When you join you’ll get to create your own page. On this page you have the ability to add content, let people know who you are, add an RSS feed from your blog, add blog posts, add videos ~ all amazing ways to connect.

You might be wondering how you’re going to create all this content on top of the other content you have to create.  It’s not as hard as you might think. Repurpose your content! You can use articles you write for EZA or other article directories as blog posts ~ you can use any video you uploaded to youtube here as well.

Remember, each time you do this your content will show up on the front page of the site. At twitter moms you have the chance to get 25K member eyes on the page, as well as all the traffic that comes to the site via other avenues.

These are targeted eyes too ~ which matters. Once you become active in the community people will begin to look forward to seeing your new content and will be on the lookout for it ~ they will also start spreading the word about it too ~ they may tweet, or FB it. (which is very easy to do at twittermoms ~ since it’s moms who use twitter!)

I hope you are beginning to see the possibilities that come from this type of community.

While there’s no “signatures” in a Ning community if you have a unique image put up for your page, people will begin to notice your picture everywhere. If you participate in conversations people will start seeing you around and want to know more about you ~ now you’ve got an entire page for them to get to know you and like you, and you can send them wherever you want from  your page. Very powerful.

Friend requests: It won’t take long and very little participation before you begin to get friend requests. When you’re logged in they’ll show up in a box on the right hand side of your page. You just click the “friends” link and it will take you to the request page. You can click on the people who have requested friendship and learn more about them.

Did you see how that worked? They asked you to be friends, and you looked at their page. If you do the same thing you will get the same results ~ not only will people accept your friend requests, but they will view your page when they do it (most of the time) and get to know you and what you’re doing in the process.

Groups  and forums: If you go to the top navigation bar you’ll see a “community” link. This is where you’ll find where and what people are talking about. Twittermoms currently has 471 groups ~ some are small an relatively inactive, and some are big and have lots of activity. There are groups on everything from Book Clubs to Ebay selling, to breastfeeding, to decorating cakes.  There are literally groups for just about everyone here.  Pick a few and start participating. Each time you do, it will show up on the front page of the site, and people will start to recognize your avatar ~ and feel like they know you. Talk to people directly ~ and just like forums, don’t drop links, but converse with and help people out! For a while the twittermoms book club was very active and we were having live chats with authors every week or two. Lots of fun!

Discussion Forums are a little different. They are more like regular forums. They are one thread of a conversation about a specific topic. It’s also a great place to start a conversation, or ask a question you have. Some conversations will take off, and some won’t but again… every discussion post shows up on the front page of the site.

What Ning community should I join?

Twittermoms is pretty much the only community I’m really involved in anymore, because all of the things I’m involved in are covered in this one community. That may not be true for you, so you’ll need to find a different community.

You can go to Ning.com ~ there is a search box, top right hand corner where you can put in keywords/topics and see what’s out there.  I suggest you look for communities that are active, and have at least 1000 members. You don’t want to be spending time participating and adding content if you don’t really have any audience within that community.

Remember… you don’t have to join a community that’s is exactly about your topic, but you want to join a community where your market hangs out. So let’s say you have an educational blog ~ you may want to join a homeschooling community, or even a community that revolves around healthier foods in school ~ you see your target market will be there as well. You don’t need to talk all about educating children, you can talk about food in schools, and when people come to your page they will see that you have great educational stuff on your blog, it’s a natural progression for them to move to your site.

Here’s some communities I’ve found on  different topics.

Fitness: Bookieboo Very active, lots of challenges, and plenty of twitterchats as well.

Law of attraction: Powerful Intentions very active ~

Law of attraction/EFT: Boundless living ~ great regular challenges and active friendly community

Mom Bloggers: Blogamama

Squidoo ~ Rocketmoms ~ this is an invite only group ~ I can submit your name if you want to participate.

That’s about it, the Ning community can be a very powerful way to build brand you and build traffic to your site. The key is consistent participation. You’ll need to come up with some sort of a plan, so you spend quality time there, but don’t end up spending ALL your time there. This is a great promotional activity, but you need to keep steady with your content creation as well.

If you join any of the above communities, shoot me a friend request! If you have any questions or want to tell us about your Ning experience, please leave a comment below!