I have a few points to ponder as it concerns Social Networks! I had a conversation with a member of one of my Ning sites and we both were concerned about the growing number of Ning sites that are no more than a space full of faces and no activity. I’m a member of 40+ Ning sites and this doesn’t include the many other social networks that I’ve joined. I must admit that I use them all as a marketing tool, however I only joined sites that interest me, for instance I wouldn’t join a site for ladies who love snakes just because there’s a lot of ladies on the network. I can’t stand the sight of snakes so that wouldn’t work for me, no matter how many women I can pitch my spill to.
With that said I went on every site and asked my self five questions:
1. Does the network description, mission or purpose match what is actually happening?
2. Do you receive feed back and information from site manager, group leaders etc?
3. Are the groups active? Meaning is there a discussion thread started at least once a week?
4. Is the network administrator accessible?
5. The blogs, are they informative and submitted daily? (Versus Just marketing holes)
Clearly most of the sites failed miserably. This taught me a lot about what not to do as a Ning Network Administrator. I have a desire to recruit sustain members that are interested in my mission and want to benefit from being on my networks. I decided that quality is better that quantity; I have at least 10 members that joined and haven’t been back on the network since. Now what purpose does that serve?
On Women Support Women you will receive the following, if not I hope that you would cancel membership:
• Groups will have a leader that creates discussion and evokes activity weekly.
• A weekly theme that is inspirational and motivational.
• Access to network administrator (I return emails, answers questions, welcome suggestions etc)
• Access to monthly workshops
• An environment that matches the site mission and description.
I want you to know that these are my goals and I want to be held accountable. If this network is for you please join and hold me to it. I want to be the best but I have learned a lot of good and bad from the rest. Let me put the good on Blast, the bad well we won’t discuss them.
Sites that are vibrant have active groups, the administrator is accessible to some degree, the blogs are excellent and I feel at home. No particular order, some are large, some are growing. This is just 5. I know there’s probably many more out there. Please no one take offense.
I hope this information is helpful to you! I would love to hear your response. I think that Social Networks are great but when they're targeted to a center niche, the audience is there because they expect certain things from it. It’s not MySpace, facebook or Black Planet. We expect to be lost in the crowd on those networks. However when we join a network for women who love to knit we expect to find information as it relates to knitting. Thanks for your ear!
Hi Richetta, I'm interested in you NING site because you are informative and appear to be genuine. I like the one where you slapped your own hand and came back with some goals for yourself. Goals are tough to stick with so I want to join your site so you and I can achieve some goals together and offer support if needed. I hope I can get some one-on-ones before your site gets too big and I get lost so my name is Ms Mittie from San Diego CA born and raised a Texan
Thursday, January 7th 2010 at 12:41PM
Mittie Clark
