We've all watched My Space and Facebook build a whole society on the web. I know we've also wished we could build this kind of link within our audience. We all know we could turn our normal P1s into super-P1s and also get our P1s to mingle and make our brand and station a lot more engaging.
But, how do you build this kind of network? It looks like a lot of work and we can hardly keep up the web site as it stands at most stations. Well it's not as hard as it looks - in fact it can be as easy has setting up a simple blog like this one. Ning has set up a FREE ONLINE SERVICE that you can sign up with just like you sign up for a blog. They have all the tools to start a social network.
Right now there are only a few non-commercial and college stations in the mix, but you can see the potential. There are sites for tons of universities, hobbies, and just about anything that interests the world.
Here's an example of a Big Brother Social Network for fans of the TV Show. So far I couldn't find much from commercial and terrestrial stations on Ning's thousands of social networks. The recent launch of the The Sound in Los Angles used Ning to set up a site for their 'Bruce' stunt where they went all Springsteen in honor of his concert, but now that site is down. A few other college station use the site, but they require you to join their 'club' to even see the site. I did find the Chicago Classical station using the site WFMT.
Take a look at these and also look at the Ning site and perhaps you can start building your social network with your audience.
Ning is basically Free, but they do charge if you want to have or sell Ads on your site ($20 a month) and if you need more storage space, want to use another domain name and other features, but it's not a big charge.
Good Luck and I'd love to hear of any networks you set up.
No comments:
Post a Comment