If you have an association, cause or even business, consider building your own social networking site from scratch. The best part about this is you don’t have to be a programmer.
There are a number of sites on the Internet that enable you to create your own social networking site. Ning is the most popular one. But, there are others, like Elgg, SocialGo, Spruz and Grou.ps. If you are looking to create your own community, it’s best to check out all these sites before selecting one.
Ning has been around since October 2004. The site, which used to be free, boasts more than 40 million visitors a month. Recently, the web site, started to charge a fee to have a community on the site. The fee is minimal, $10 and up.
Ning has more than 2 million communities established on the site. The site is broken down into various categories, such as Entertainment, Music, Politics, Activism, Sports, Brands and Publishing. It offers a 30-day free risk free trial and it is fully integrated with Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and more.
In an interview on the Charlie Rose Show this past March, Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning, said that communities on Ning range from the Bulivian government to people who love surfing.
Elgg focuses on schools and community groups but also offers businesses and non-profit organizations the opportunity to use the service. To me, Elgg looks like a functional site. It’s not attractive like Ning but if you are looking for a basic site to host your community, this could be a viable choice.
SocialGo is another community building site. What I like about this site is that they offer live help to walk you through the development of the site. Some of the sites on SocialGo include “Christian Military Wives,” and “We R Moms.” Each site on the network has it’s own individual design. This service is offered for free for 1 GB of storage and 10 GB of Bandwidth but if you are looking for more, the prices start at $14.95 each. SocialGo has Facebook integration, along with blogging and forums on each site.
It’s funny but Spruz has a very similar look to SocialGo. It seems like the user-friendliest site to me. On the home page, you can put in your site title and site address; you don’t need to go to another window to find it. Spruz also has integration with Ning so if someone wants to switch platforms, it can easily be transferred. To date, the site hosts more than 400,000 communities. The communities range from business and culture to lifestyles and schools. Launched in 2007, Spruz is based in Tennessee. They also have a live chat room where customer service representatives will walk you through set up or address any questions you may have.
Grou.ps has a very different look. When you go to the URL, you are asked to either sign in or sign up in order to review the site. Online gaming forums, e-learning classrooms, fan clubs, charity fundraising campaigns, college alumni societies, and event planning portals are all on the site. The company was founded in 2006 in Paulo Alto, California. The site has 226 members to date. At first when I surfed around the site, I thought it was free. But after you dig a little, you find that it is free but not fully functional until you pay a fee. What’s interesting about the site is that you can pick and choose what you want on your page whether or not it’s a blog, forum, chat room, video depository, etc.
Interestingly all of these sites offer an opportunity to make money. This can be done by charging a nominal fee for membership to the site and also through Google Ads.
It’s amazing how many options there are on the Internet today to build your own social networking site. If you are looking to get started, review these and others first before delving in. Once you do, promote the site everywhere so that you build your community quickly.
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This article written by Hilary Topper also appeared on Blogcritics.org.
