Scott Sandland talks about what he puts front and center on his network and how he encourages people to get involved in conversation. Visit Hypnothoughts.com.
Tony Ideem talks about what features they focused on when they started — and what they ended up sticking with after seeing and hearing what their community really wanted. Visit BlackTree TV.
My Modern Met started as a social network and then evolved over time to focus on their blog and showcasing compelling artistic content. Visit My Modern Met.
Have you ever walked into a store with too many choices — an electronics store with 75 big-screen TVs or 22 different wireless network routers? What did you feel? Confusion? Paralysis? The urge to walk right back out the door? Your Ning Network offers dozens of features, hundreds of third-party applications and limitless ways to customize it. Your first impulse might be, “I should add all of these!” If you can… resist that urge. Make the experience easy for your members by keeping it simple.
Critical mass is another important reason to keep it simple. If you only offer a couple of features, all of your members will congregate in those areas — posting content and commenting on other members’ posts. This member engagement feeds on itself, encouraging still more activity. If instead you offer 15 features and apps, your members will be spread across them. Activity around any single feature will be lower, and members will likely be less engaged.
Do this
- Focus on 2-3 features: If you haven’t defined your hook for your Ning Network yet, read this article. Focus on the natural ways your members can contribute and interact around the passion or interest defined by your hook. For example, WeLoveBirds emphasizes photos and videos.
- Activity Feed top-center: If you have members and activity, consider switching to a two-column layout and placing your Activity Feed at the top of the wider colum. This focuses member attention on the latest posts, comments and new members on your network.
- Use your Leaderboards: Your Leaderboards let members get quickly caught up and indicates what’s hot. Survive France positions their Leaderboard at the top-center of their Main Page and titles it “most viewed content” which is a simple (and very effective) way to draw people deeper into the site.
- Use photos and videos to your advantage: Data shows these are two of our most popular features. By adding both, you’re giving your members a quick and easy way to add content. One Day on Earth, although focused intently on videos, also accepts photo submissions contests to encourage members to contribute even more.
- Forum vs. blog?: The Forum feature is designed to encourage members to post new topics and discuss topics with each other, but Blogs are a more rich way to publish content to your community and generate comments. Some networks, like Navy for Moms, thrive on community-led discussion, while others, like My Modern Met, are focused almost exclusively on blogging.
Don’t do this
- Forget to edit yourself: Just because a feature is available, doesn’t mean you need to use it. Start simple, and make sure what you have is working. If a feature has little or no activity, remove it!
- Go overboard with Ning Apps: The many third-party apps that are available add new functionality, but it’s best to add only one or two — the ones that truly fit your Ning Network.
Survive France is all about expats living and learning (and hopefully learning to love) the French way of life. This expat network is laser focused on conversation, both in their forum and via online chat. It has a nice, clean, uncluttered design that stays out of the way and helps keep the focus on the conversation. One thing they do very well, and that is easy to replicate, is to use the Leaderboard to pull both new and returning visitors into the most active posts. They’ve set up a Leaderboard in the top-center position and titled it “most viewed content.” To reinforce this “top content” approach and drive even more traffic, they send out short and sweet Broadcast Messages every few days highlighting one or two top posts. They watch the view counts on theses posts to measure their effectiveness. C’est magnifique!
WeLoveBirds is a great example of a Ning Network that revolves almost entirely around one central idea: sharing pictures of pretty birds. If your Ning Network revolves around the sharing of images like this, focus on that and keep it squarely in the foreground. To keep people sharing, they run regular contests to encourage members to vote for their favorites. They also encourage members to create photo albums, both for themselves and for the benefit of everyone. They keep the photos very visible on their Main Page, and they repeatedly prompt members to let them know when voting for the current contest ends. These bird lovers love sharing, and it shows.
Extreme sports fans have a new online destination: Shred or Die. It began last year with a big push by skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, and it’s since become the place for anyone who’s ever broken an arm trying an outrageous trick — or maybe just thought about trying one. The focus of this Ning Network is simple: videos. Tony and his members have uploaded over 12,000 videos that touch on nearly every type of outrageous skateboard trick imaginable, including their most famous (and amazing) video, Skater Ollies Car. The Main Page of Shred or Die is simple, but it’s effective at pulling you in. A Flash carousel showcases the hottest content, and a “New Videos” section highlights member tricks and mishaps, followed by a few blogs and the Latest Activity feed, which encourages members to comment, post status updates, and upload their own videos. It’s extremely effective — and only needs a handful of features.
One Day on Earth’s goal is at once high-minded and idealistic, but ultimately simple in its execution. They’re creating an archive of global media to affect positive change that includes video footage representing every single country in the world. They asked as many people as possible to contribute at least one minute of film in a specific 24-hour period on one particular day: 11/11/11. The simplicity and focus of their Ning Network reflects their single-minded goal. At the top of the page, they trumpet a strong call-to-action, asking visitors to become volunteers by signing up and uploading a video. Their prominent Activity Feed highlights the most recent contributions, and they do a great job of spotlighting members who have compelling stories to tell.
