Realty Agents

Build your own online community resource and social network

Ning is promoted as a program that can help you create your own social network. This month Ning passed the 200,000 social network mark and is growing at the rate of over 1,000 social networks per day.  Ning wasn’t developed with real estate in mind, but I suspect it is a program that real estate agents will embrace once they discover it. I recently canceled a very expensive community website in favor of Ning at a fraction of the cost.  So far, the comments from the public about my Ning site have been favorable and I’m on my way to building my online community.

For Realtors®, Ning can be used as a community resource with a social network component; a place to post links, photos and videos but also to engage your local community.  To get started, you need to sign up for a free Ning account. The Ning program will then walk you through the design process.  I found it similar (but easier) than setting up a blog.  Your management dashboard will give you choices of how your main page can look including color schemes and themes, as well as drag and drop modules like forums, chat windows and photos. If you are comfortable with HTML, full customization is possible.  Even without that knowledge, your Ning community can be branded to look pretty much the way you want it.

Once you create your network, it is up to you to invite members to keep your online community active. Members who join the network can create their own profile and then form groups, chat and write their own blogs. Your members can then invite other members to populate your community.

The basic cost is free but you can elect to pay $19.95 per month to eliminate the pesky ads on the side and give you full use of the right column of your network.  I also paid $4.95 a month to Ning to allow me to map my own URL to my network.  Purchasing more storage and bandwidth could be a future option for me.

PROS: Ning is quick and relatively easy to set up with a help center that is quite useful. What you can’t figure out on your own or through the help center can be researched in the Ning network creators forum. Members volunteer answers readily.

I especially like the Photo sharing options using Flickr and the ability to easily add widgets by placing them in text boxes.  I love the big bold design of most Ning sites I have seen.

CONS: It would be nice if Ning had a few more templates for business users who don’t have the skills to customize their own site. Ning occasionally has unexplained glitches, although normally all systems are go.

Since Ning is free to set up and the initial time commitment is quite small, it’s worth taking a look to see if a Ning social network can enhance your business!

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Posted by Tax Liens  on  06/30  at  05:20 AM

I totally am with you on your post about ning for real estate Agents. I am a Realtor from India and have successfully built an interesting network for our community using ning..You may check it out at http://simplycity.ning.com
I would be happy to have you on our panel gudig us all members to build it more professionally
My email is oksohow@gmail.com and my Real Estate website is http://thereality.in
Regards
Pankaj Sampat,
Pune,India

Posted by Pankaj Sampat  on  04/14  at  01:09 PM

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