Does Anyone Promote With Ning?

I checked out Ning today and I really like it. For those who don't know, it's a social networking site with lots of social groups about many different niches. You can join the group that you like, and you can post free classified ads, blog posts, and forum discussions. It's really a great way to promote for free.

I decided to join the Home Based Business Program Group today. They have 3300+ members, but there are other groups that have many more. I put up a blog post, classified ad, and discussion today and have gotten quite a bit of traffic. I think it's a great network and I'm really enjoying it. You also have a really great looking home page that you can use to promote yourself. You can add your RSS feed from your blog and display your latest discussion, add HTML, comments, photos, etc. Well, just have a look. The link to my home page is below. You might be able to get some solid free traffic from it.

http://homebasedbusinessprogram.ning.com/profile/ChrisMollo

 

The thing I dont like about Ning and socialgo Chris is that if you want to private label stuff or get rid of their ads you have to pay. That and you cant really host your page yourself--it stays on their servers. that means they can change the rules at any time...like increase their fees, put on more ads, whatever they want, you really dont own it. I think it's great if you just want to congregate. But, if you want to own a site that you fully control, it's not going to happen there. You can be the ADMINISTRATOR, If you read up on their past socialgo exists because some people left Ning. Now, if they would sell their platform that was easy to get up and running on my own hosting service so that I actually owned the site, then yah, I'd do it.

 

You made some really good points. However, I don't think I'm going to a whole bunch of work into it. I started a discussion, posted a classified ad and a couple of blog posts. I'll probably just leave it at that and see what happens. I'm not a big fan of free services, either, especially when you don't own the content once you submit it to them.

 

Thanks for the great info on Ning. It is always nice to learn something new.

 

Does Ning pages rank high in the search engines? Participating in discussions, blogs, etc. seems like a lot of work.
But if Ning ranks high in Google we can simply spam the hell out of it and get some organic traffic

 

Wow, it sounds interesting, never tried it so far, but will do for sure...The More - The better!

 

hii CJMO75 !!
i also having a website on ning , here is the my website http://walpaperworld.ning.com/
but i m not able to promote it !! m confused !!
cud u plz take me into ur team !!

 

minimum success for me with Ning-buts its probably me not Ning

 

Could you explain? You promote it as you would any other website or blog. You promote your home page.

 

I do have to agree here. I see that as a major drawback to any of the "hosted" social sites. The advantage though is they host it so they can fix issues quickly. Its really a double edged sword for many reason. rSitez does custom work, but you have no support staff after the fact. I really don't know if there is any middle ground on this...

I have been seriously considering starting my own social network. I have looked into just about every package out there. SocialGo an Ning look to be the best "managed" services. With my chaotic schedule and lifestyle, it looks to be my best option. I'm not in a situation where I can hire support staff separate from the purchase of the software.

The other downside of most "managed" social networking sites is they all work the same or similar to previously existing ones. That, in my opinion, is a severe limiting factor in marketability. With no special features specific to the site, there's really no reason for X user to join and working to become the next Twitter or Facebook is near impossible. This area is where uniqueness really is a requirement to any large scale success.

 

And this Ning is used where? I don't think that Ning captures a decent amount of web traffic so why would you try and optimize for it? I know it is ideal to rank good everywhere but maybe I was just wondering out aloud.

 

The good thing about ning is if someone is signed up for another ning site they can easily join yours. I really like ning but never use it. Thanks for the info though.

 

I really like Ning as well. The monthly memberships don't seem to high, if you can monitize it.

 

Ning has been around for sometime, but doesn't have the following of the likes of Twitter

 

ning shouldnt have start charging

 

Awesome info you have here. You actually realize this and I am glad I found this entry by you thanks a bunch.