How to Create a Social Network

Develop a Custom Social Community for Any Organization or Business

Jun 28, 2009

Creating a custom social network or community for a business or organization engages customers, fans and members, and builds ongoing relationships online.

Millions are flocking to Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Bebo, and other social networks online each day. In fact, Facebook members alone are logging 13.9 billion minutes per month on the site, according to Nielsen.

Many organizations have followed suit by creating fan pages and groups within these social networks as a way to engage individuals online. Often, these points of entry to a company or brand are short-lived: an individual joins as a member of a page or group, and then goes about their business within these networks, with limited and irregular activity within the group or page they have joined.

Utilizing social networks is a great approach to reach the masses and to introduce new audiences to a company or organization, but for the most loyal, most active and most valuable customers, it comes up short.

Creating a Custom Social Network

There are several user-friendly platforms that can be used to construct a custom social network. One of the simplest and most viral approaches is through Ning. Ning allows users to create and join unique social networks that build strong relationships with fans, customers and members for free. To date, the service has generated more than one million social networks and has 27 million users.

Ning can be visually customized using one of 50 provided templates, or completely customized by editing the CSS. The interface can include widgets for uploading photos, video, music, events and more to the social network.

Each member who joins a Ning-based network can create their own member profile page, adding social media applications and blog posts. Similar to other social networks, the interface includes a real-time member activity stream and the ability to chat with other members online. Because Ning is so user-friendly, it is highly viral, with members often creating affinity groups as part of existing networks. Other user-friendly social network and community creators include elgg, SnappVille and iSocial.

For more savvy users looking for a complete, open source, development platform, Boonex’s Dolphin Smart Community Builder software allows users to create a variety of online networks, including dating sites, membership communities, social networks, video sharing portals, etc. for free. Dolphin includes more advanced features like video chat and video messenger, a desktop application and music sharing.

Inviting and Engaging Members through Social Network

Once an organization has created and customized a social network, the next step is to invite fans, members and customers to join. There are a variety of ways to introduce the social network to an organization’s key audiences:

The most important element to growing a member-base in an online community is to offer value to the members, giving them a reason to return. In order to acquire new members and keep existing members, it is crucial to continuously engage them with good content:

Social networks are a great way to build a true community of customers, members and fans online, and connect with them in non-traditional ways.

The copyright of the article How to Create a Social Network in Social Networking/Tagging is owned by Jessica Bennett. Permission to republish How to Create a Social Network in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.