Posts Tagged ‘community software’

Online Community Chat Software

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Choosing chat software for online community chat rooms can be a difficult process. There are many options available as web hosting companies compete to offer potential customers a variety of service choices. When choosing chat software for community chat there are five things that you, the buyer, should always keep in mind.

First of all, does the web hosting company offer you and your visitors any sort of customer/technical support? Many people have found that chat software is easy to install but not so easy to use effectively each and every time. It is important that you, the website owner, have proper support available to trouble shoot any difficulties that you or your customers have. Before signing up for web hosting with a company that includes chat software or purchasing chat software ask them whether or not they offer live support to you, the buyer, and the people using the site/software. If the software or hosting company does offer live support find out whether this support is strictly online or if telephone support is also include.

Secondly, find out how often the chat software and web hosting is down. Some vendors will not be willing to give you an honest answer so be prepared to do a little bit of research. Do a search using Google or any other major search engine using the name of the chat software or web hosting company and see if any complaints turn up. Also, visit the web hosting company’s blog or public support log to see what errors and downtime has been reported.

Third, establish how difficult, or easy, it is to find out how to contact customer support to answer questions. Does the web hosting company or software company offer a wiki with information on their chat software? Are the customer service email addresses and phone numbers easy to find? If you notice that information is hidden then you might want to consider other web hosting alternatives. When you or your clients are frustrated by a website chat software problem the last thing you want to do is spend time hunting around a web hosting site for customer support contact information.

Fourth, does the chat software for your community require any additional plug-ins or third party software to run properly? This might seem like a minor issue but if users have pop-ups disabled or strong firewalls they may not be aware of the reasons why the chat software is not working correctly for them. Try to use a web host that has chat software which requires no additional plug-ins or outside software.

Fifth and finally, test the new chat software for your community extensively before making it available to the entire community. This will help you and your technical teams identify any serious problems and malfunctions before making a public launch. Remember, failure to properly test your chat software could result in problems throughout your entire community.

These steps might seem like overkill to some website owners but having functioning chat software will help members of your community interact and get the most out of their social networking experience.

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Posted in Social Networking Services, Social Networks | 1 Comment »

Creating an Online Community – Important Things to Remember

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Creating a fully functioning online community can be a time consuming, but completely worthwhile, process. Many people make the mistake of assuming creating an online community will only require a domain name and a web hosting company. In reality a successful online community requires a great deal of planning to determine how you want members to interact, what sort of features you want to offer members, and most importantly what type of online community software will be necessary to support your newly launched website.

After you have made a few basic decisions regarding the look and feel of your community it is time to contact a software developer. Even if you are not ready to start and launch your online community talking to a software developer will help give you a realistic idea of the development process. Creating your own, original, social networking site is going to take time and a qualified developer will be able to give you an appropriate estimate on the time it will take to develop and test a new online community software program.

Next you will be faced with the dilemma of budgeting for your project.

Usually it is best to set a budget for your project before contacting a developer but when it comes to a project of this nature many first timers have a difficult time estimating the actual cost of a social networking site. Most people make the mistake of assuming their website will cost the same to develop and maintain as a traditional business website. Since an online community requires a bit more back end design, testing, and maintenance the cost will be more than an average site design. Be prepared to spend a good deal of money for the development of your online community software and the cost of reliable web hosting, domain registration, and eventually marketing.

There are many who attempt to rely on free online forums, chat room sites, and more to start their own online community but always remember you get what you pay for. When relying on a third party site you will be at the mercy of their servers, software, and support teams. If a third part site goes down then your site, while still live, will be virtually useless and your members will go elsewhere.

Last, but not least, extensively test your online community software before letting the public sign up. Get your friends and family members to sign up for test profiles so that they can tell you about any bugs or problems they experience. Find out whether or not your forums, chat rooms, or blogs slow down when multiple users are logged in and also experiment with your communities messaging system. Taking the time to test out your own system before opening it to the public will help you avoid hundreds of support tickets and customer service emails/complaints.

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Posted in Social Networks, Web Development | 2 Comments »

Social Networking – Why You Should Start Your Own Community

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

After the enormous popularity explosion that followed the launch of MySpace many Internet entrepreneurs and marketers found themselves wondering why they did not come up with MySpace first. The idea of social networking is nothing new but before MySpace it was not seen on such a large, user friendly, level. Quite a few Internet savvy people would have loved the chance to make a fortune selling advertisement space to major movie studios, television stations, bands, and much more. Surprisingly creating a website like MySpace is not nearly as difficult as you may be imagining.

In order to establish a social networking website it is necessary to invest in your own, customized, social networking software. This software is created by a developer that specializes in creating programs to be used for social networking and will be branded for your own use. While hiring a development company and setting up web hosting along with marketing can be expensive in the long run it will be worth it.

Even though many people prefer setting up their own profiles on sites like MySpace and using them to promote their own businesses setting up your own website will give you much more control over your promotion and increase your opportunity for financial success. When using third party sites you are totally dependent on their system and have to hope that there is no downtime, errors with messaging, or anything else that can have an adverse affect on your promotional efforts. You are also at the mercy of their staff that may or may not close or lock your account for a variety of reasons real or imagined leaving you to cool your heels until someone has the time to answer your support ticket.

Setting up your own social networking site will give you total control over the community. You will be able to invite your friends and business associates to sign up and then watch the news spread through word of mouth. Unlike other website ventures social networking leads to word of mouth news being spread because once a user has a profile set up they want the world to see it. Plus you will be able to set up a site that showcases your own interests be it body art, music, television, animation, or anything else you can imagine.

If you are interested in starting your own social networking website you will need to contact a web design company that specializes in social networking sites. Since there is a lot of work involved in the development and upkeep of any social networking site you will want to choose a company with experience in the field. Once you have found a web design company that has designed sites that are similar to your own vision contact them with any questions you might have. In many instances these companies will be able to recommend web hosting and even provide marketing assistance. With all of this in mind if you are someone that wishes you were the owner of MySpace it is time to invest in your own social networking site.

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Posted in Social Networking Services, Social Networks, Web Development | No Comments »

What is an Online Community Developer?

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Do you have an online community developer on staff? Do you need one? If you are trying to move towards creating your own social networking site that is going to promote your business or be a stand alone product for your business then you probably do need someone on staff that can work full time on developing your community site.

An online community developer is someone whose job it is to make sure that everyone related to your community website runs smoothly. The community developer is responsible for letting the technicians know if there is a technical problem with the site, and also is responsible for making sure the day to day running of the site goes smoothly. More importantly, this person is also in charge of posting new content, organizing the site, keeping discussions going in the forums, policing and moderating the forums, answering any questions that new members have and much more.

In addition to the running of the site the community developer needs to be a forward thinker that is on top of the trends in the industry and can help the tech department plan out new features and site improvements that will help the community site run more smoothly and meet the users’ expectations. A good way to think of the online community developer is to think of that person as a liaison between the community site and the users of the site and the community site and the technical designers of the site.

Why do you need a community developer to do all this? Because chances are that you don’t have time do it and neither does your IT department. Wouldn’t you rather have your IT techs working on the next product release than on the community site? Most companies would. Plus, a professional online community developer has spent a lot of time on social networking sites and will know how to make the site run smoothly and be a fun, interesting, and exciting site that other people will want to join and come back to often to participate in discussions or network with other people.

So when you’re ready to get your online community site up and running it’s time to find a community development professional to run it. Where do you look for someone with the skills and experience to make your community site grow? On a social networking site of course. Many professional site developers can be found by doing a resume search on MySpace or Facebook.

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What is Online Community Software?

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Building online communities is one of the latest trends when it comes to marketing and promoting a website so you may have been hearing a lot of buzz about online communities and online community software. Community building software is used to help individuals and business owners create custom online communities. So if you want to have a social online community attached to your website you need to use community building software to build it.

Some community building software is very easy to use and makes it simple for even a very inexperienced Web user to create a personal online community that goes with a website but some community software is more flash than substance. Even though some of the community software offers users pre-loaded templates to make very flashy looking online communities the functionality of these sites often leaves something to be desired.

The functionality of an online community is very important if you want that community to succeed. People that use these online communities like community sites that are clean and polished but don’t have a lot of flash or graphics to slow down their computers. They also like online communities to have lots of fun features and applications that can be added to their profile in the community like the ability to upload photos, video or music that can be shared among their contacts in the community.

If you want to put an online community on your website or use an online community to promote your business then you should choose software carefully. Look for recommendations from other companies and other users before selecting an online community software. You should be able to find out from other customers if a particular type of community software is easy to use or not and what types of features it has and whether or not those features are usable. If you have specific questions about a piece of community software you should call their customer service line to get the answers that you need.

Building an online community can add a lot of value to your website and it can help you attract more clients and customers but only if you plan well and use high quality community software that has all the features that you want.

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Tips For Finding the Right Online Community Software

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

There is a lot of different online community software on the market right now. Some of these community software programs are cheap and some aren’t. Just like with anything that you buy for your business it makes sense to spend more money on a better product than to buy a cheap product that doesn’t have the functionality that you need. So how do you know which community building software is worth the money and which isn’t? These tips can help you find out if the community software that you’re considering buying is worth the money or not.

Always look at the screenshots – When you’re looking at the website advertising some business community software more often than not the company will put screenshots of the product in action on the website. It can be tempting to zip right by those photos but take the time to look at the screen shots. If you look closely you’ll be able to see the layout of the program and other design features that will tell you if the design of the program is intuitive and easy to use or if it’s difficult to navigate.

Ask for a free trial. If the company doesn’t offer a free trial of the community building software that they sell you should ask for one. Some companies don’t automatically offer free trials but if you talk to their customer service department they will usually let you try the online community software free for a week, two weeks, or even a month. The only way to really know if a particular community software is going to be easy to use and has the features that you want is to try it out. Most software companies know that and have no problem letting potential customers try the software for free.

Look at other sites that use that brand of community software. The software company should be able to give you the names of other companies that use their software. Look at the websites of those companies to see how that particular online community software operates from a user standpoint and how it functions. You can learn a lot about the software just by seeing how it works in a real setting.

There isn’t one particular brand of community building software that is going to be right for every business but it does pay in the long run to research carefully when choosing the software to create a custom online community. Since building custom social networks and online communities is very popular right now the Web is flooded with social community software. Some of it works very well, and some of it doesn’t. So be sure that you are choosing community software that fits your skill level as well as your budget.

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Posted in Social Networking Services, Social Networks, Web Development | 1 Comment »

Building an Online Community

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Online communities are becoming extremely popular, and there are a lot of different ways that building an online community can help your business. You can use an online community to promote your products but also to build a strong network of customers that will help you promote your product. You can also learn your target market and your customers buying habits when you have an online community that you can use to collect data from your customers.

So how do you build an online community? Building an online community takes some time and a lot of planning. Planning is essential to building a successful online community. You need to make sure that all the components of the online community are functional before you roll out the new community because once people start signing up to be part of the community it will be too late to try and fix any errors. There are a lot of online communities out there that are all competing for people to join their communities. Because of this competition people expect the communities that they join to be functional and to have certain features, like lots of customizable profile components and other features. If the community doesn’t function well or the site navigation isn’t easy to use or if they don’t like the features that the community has they will just go elsewhere and you could lose valuable customers and customer data.

So when you start planning to build an online community to support your product or even to be a stand alone product for your company it’s very important that you spend some time learning how to build an online community. Make sure that the basic community site structure has been tested and is functional before you roll out the community site. Also you should be prepared for it to take awhile before your online community is thriving.

An online community will not be successful overnight; you need to give your new online community at least six months of constant operation before you will start to see a significant jump in new people joining the community. No one wants to join an online community that is going to fade away so it’s common for people to wait a month or more to join a community but they will be checking the community site every few days to see how active the site is. So it’s a good idea to do whatever you have to do, even pay people if necessary, to post on the community forums and to participate in the site. That’s the only way to build a strong community site from the ground up.

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Posted in Social Networks, Web Development | 1 Comment »

5 Ways to Build a Community Online

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Do you want to build a community online to promote your product? When you build a community online you not only are drawing in more customers for your product you are also making sure that they are loyal to your company because they will continue to buy from a company they trust. So how can you build a community online that will really help your business grow? Here are 5 easy ways to build a community online.

1. Use forums – Everyone loves to voice their opinion and discuss topics. Online forums really help to build a community because online forums give people a chance to interact with one another and build up relationships. Using a forum can be tricky because sometimes online forums can become very heated places but if you have a moderator that monitors the forums to make sure that forum threads don’t get too heated and conflicts don’t get out of control then forums can be a great way to build a community online.

2. Let users customize their profiles – People like to share a little bit of themselves with others and customizing their individual profiles is one way to let them do that. Social community software will often have customizable templates that will let you set an overall theme for the community but will let individual users customize their own pages.

3. Get everyone you know to join – In the beginning it can be tough to get people to sign up for your online community. No one wants to be the first person to sign up in a community. The more people your community has the more people you will draw. So if you’re creating a public community recruit friends, family and employees to sign up immediately to make it look like the community already has a strong base.

4. Post often – When a community is just starting out it’s important to let people know that it’s an active community. The best way to do that is to post often. Start new discussions, comment on people’s profiles, do anything that you can do to be visible and loud on the community site.

5. Give it time – Often it takes time to build a community online. People need time to find their voices and comfort levels on the site and there also needs to be a buildup of communal trust before people truly feel that they are part of the community. So even if it seems at first like the site is not progressing as fast as you want it to don’t shut the site down or stop being active on the site. Give it at least six months to grow before you reassess whether or not the community is meeting the goals that you set for it.

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5 Things You Need to Build an Online Community

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Building an online community is lot like a grassroots public relations campaign. Word of mouth carries a lot of weight, and the more recommendations you can get from other people the better your chances of attracting new people are. So once you start your own community site how can build an online community cheaply and effectively? Here are 5 things that you can use to spread the word about your online community without spending a lot of money.

1. Viral marketing – Viral marketing involves using videos, Podcasts, and other new media as a way of reaching people that might be interested in your online community. Sometimes you might have to pay for the opportunity, like if you want to be featured in a Podcast, but videos on sites like YouTube are free. You can make a video cheaply and use that to promote your online community site virally when you use a site like YouTube to spread the video.

2. Blogs – Blogging is very popular and getting features on one or two or ten blogs could be a great way to get people over to your social networking site. In order to get featured on blogs that have a lot of readers you have to do a lot of networking or make sure that your site is really different and unique so that bloggers will want to write about it.

3. Other social networking sites – Creating profiles on sites like MySpace and Facebook for your community site and pointing your friends on those sites back to your own community site can be a reliable way to get new people to join your social networking site.

4. Forums – Using forums can be a good way to get people’s attention but you have to be very careful when you’re advertising your own site on a forum. You don’t want to be accused of “trolling” or using the forum just for promotion. To avoid being a troll you need to be an active participant in discussions on the forum. Don’t just post a link to your website and disappear. Post about useful, relevant things and just include a link to your site as part of your signature.

But remember that people will be deciding whether or not to join your social networking site based on your posts in the forum so always keep your posts on topic and polite. Be professional.

5. Email – Email lists can be powerful tools for getting customers or for getting people to join your new social networking site. Break out your email lists of customers, clients, anyone that you’ve ever worked with and send out a newsletter with the information about the new site.

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