Facebook for Free Instant Communities where the Masses Hang Out
Facebook pages are easy to set up and get going. You even have fiercely targeted Facebook Ads at your disposal to get the word of your community out in the Facebook realm. Set up a Facebook page with your company's name and get your vanity URL as soon as you can. A vanity URL shows your name as: facebook.com/yourbusiness, instead of "facebook.com/19384748283/yourbusiness" Vanity URL's make finding you much easier. Hubspot.com has an article on how to set up your vanity URL with Facebook that is very helpful.
The Blog Frog: Communities for Blogs and Brands
The blog frog is great because of their undying support for their users. You can get an instant community with instant help from administrators. In addition, you can like other communities and get liked back immediately - the communities are very active. The Blog Frog has services for bloggers and brands alike and there are even paid services to increase your community's exposure.
The paid options are the Premium and Platinum plans. Premium runs $4.95 per month and Platinum runs $19.95 per month.
Note: Blog Frog also allows you to place a link to your community's subdomain on your website. This allows people to hang out on your website and participate in the community without leaving your website.
Ning for Building Custom Social Websites
According to Ning, they are "the ‘world’s largest platform to create powerful, custom social websites. However the real power is in their paid service. They recently just switched their business model and got rid of the free Ning version completely. They now offer a 30 day free trial with plans starting at $2.95 - $59.95 per month. The "mini" plan is only $19.95 per year which is a huge savings. Ning is very customizable and easy to set up.
Wordpress plus Mingle Forums
There is nothing wrong with building your community right on your blog. Adding forums to blogs is very simple now, especially if you have Wordpress. The easiest to implement is Mingle Forums. Simply go to the plugins page on Wordpress, do a search for Mingle, install the forum, and activate the settings from the left sidebar menu. Once you set up the forums with topics, place a link to the community right on the front page of your website.
Tips for Creating Online Communities
Businesses should use their own domain and subdomains for all communities. A blog at .blogspot, or a community at .ning lacks professional luster. Opting to host a community using your website's name shows that you are serious about branding your community correctly. A few extra dollars a year can change your community's reputation from "after-thought" to "fore-front." Fore front lets your customers know that you care about them above all else.
Carmen Sofia Grant - Carmen is a social media marketer, freelance writer, and blogger. Her favorite blogs are MomCrunch and Social Media Examiner.com
