The Community Media Workshop is a media organization in Chicago that trains nonprofits to tell their stories to the media, tips sensitive journalists to the importance of these stories, and tries to create better relationships between the media and the diverse communities in Chicago. It recently launched a ning site - a branded social network for its community of nonprofits. Thom Clark, Gordon Mayer, and Demetrio Maguigad shared some of their learnings.
1.) Tell me a little about your organization's social media strategy for its ning (branded social network) site? What did set out to accomplish? Who were you trying to reach?
Community Media Workshop’s Ning online strategy began as a way to solve a very practical solution—keeping workshop participants and trainers connected. During a social media workshop, trainers Demetrio Maguigad and Gordon Mayer covered a number of online tools with attendees. During the workshop, a number of participants requested that there be a place for them to stay connected and acquire additional materials for their work after the workshop. A Ning site was developed in order to answer this specific need.
For every online social network training we do, we actually present the ning site and demonstrate ways participants can create and customize profiles, syndicate RSS feeds, post blogs, photos and videos and more. We then invite participants to join. After the workshop, we post a discussion topic on the specific training with attached handout materials and links to further help participants of our training.
Other then this practical reason, we also syndicate headlines from our blogs, podcast, and videocast in order to pull them into the Workshops resources and eventually to our flagship website www.newstips.org to purchase our media guide, sign up for additional training, and subscribe to our electronic newsletter.
Every broadcast of our subscription based e-newsletter highlights headlines not only from our online broadcasts but also user generated posts and also a call to join the network.
Because both participants and trainers are members of our ning site, participants can continue discussions with trainers where they left off in the classroom and share the discussion with others.
2.) Why did you select ning?
Ning's development application is very intuitive and easy. Someone who has no html, CSS, JavaScript, or PHP experience can set up a site utilizing these features in less then 20 minutes and its free. Ning is also very flexible. Developers who are more experienced can create customized scripts and widgets on their site to accommodate the needs of their users.
Developers can also pay a premium fee to remove all ning branding on thier site, as well as remove advertisements. You can even use your own custom URL! Compared to other “out of the box” social website apps, Ning seems to be the most flexible, the most affordable (regarding ROI), and easy to use. Ning also allows open API to work with other popular social networks like Flickr and Facebook. Users can import their Flickr photos from their account and promote their profile pages and widgets on Facebook.
3.) How are you measuring your success with the site?
Our ning site currently has over one hundred members who post videos, start discussions and connect with others. Although we currently do not have statistical information specifically from our ning sight, approximately 6% of visits to our newstips site is referred by Ning, which isn’t that bad.
4.) Tell me a couple of stories about the project has delivered value to your organization?
I remember stepping into a Netsquared meet-up and meeting for the first time three people who I’ve chatted and consulted via the ning site. It was as if I’ve known them for a long time. The ning site has given us the ability to connect different networks with one another and keep these other networks informed about happenings and campaigns they are working on.
I also remember when a member posted their first blog post and them emailing me how they think they would have never have done it without the encouragement of others. To them is became a more practical things rather then a big obsticle, and this is what we were trying to reinforce with our workshops.
5.) How much time did take to launch and maintain? Who on staff is the "community manager"?
It took us about 20 minutes to set up the intial site, but has gone through a series of revisions based on the user experience and feedback. Our cmmunity manager was Maude Carroll our former Marketing Coordinator, who used the site to build personal relationships with our audiences.
6.) What would you recommend to other nonprofits who are considering doing a similar project?
If others are to develop a Ning site, we suggest thinking of it as a very specific tool that should support your main online goals or main wesbite. Audience and users should be identified and the site should be developed based on their needs and wants. Its worthwhile to consider psycho graphics or the general psychology of the user experience you want to convey. Take time to develop a theme or metaphor to keep users thinking of the site as fun and common place to meet but still get the resources they need.
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