Have you ever thought about creating your own social network like Facebook, but with custom features and its own identity? A network where you can define the design, the general organization and even the privacy policy.
Currently, Facebook rules the world of social networks. According to the 2017 survey, about 68% of American adults use Facebook and more than 65 million businesses own a Facebook fan page.
However, Facebook cannot meet the needs of everyone in the market, that’s why there are various social media channels. Here are some fun facts to back this up:
- In 2017, about 88% of businesses used Twitter for marketing purposes;
- YouTube reaches more adults than any other another cable network. in the US;
- Instagram became the most popular social media channel among 32% of teens.
Market needs more personalization options . Your target audience craves a personal approach. Something more specific, something more exciting.
The obvious question is, why not create your own social network?
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Reasons why you need to create your own social network like Facebook
Facebook, like any other social network, is not perfect. Their news feed is far from ideal, doesn’t allow you to focus on a specific topic and monetize your business, and has a questionable privacy policy.
Sharing your hard-earned visitors with other networks sucks . Building your own social network is the solution.
Today, you can create your own custom social networking website. Your network can be focused on products or services, or you can create a standard review community for your target audience. Some companies create custom social networks to collect and research a target niche that is not yet covered and can potentially attract a large number of people to one place.
The reason for creating a custom social network can be be simply the fact that you don’t like Facebook.
Eventually, it doesn’t really matter what the main reason for building a website like Facebook is: if your idea is good enough, it’s worth trying and making. reality. .
How difficult is it to create a new social network?
What if you have a great idea for your own social network but your lack of coding skills and technical knowledge holds you back? The truth is, not everyone has a college degree in programming. But this does not mean that you should give up on your idea. There are many online social media builders and market experts who can help you achieve your goals.
Today, you can create a social network like Facebook with minimal cost and effort. In fact, it has never been easier to create your own social networks than now.
Ning.com, for example, offers a great opportunity to create different types of social networks, including:
- Social media channels open or limited to a specific audience;
- Networks that have free or paid content;
- Websites focused on certain products or services, etc.
Ning can help you with anything.
8 Steps to Create a Website Like Facebook
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Get an Idea .
Before jumping into action, carefully consider what exactly you need a social network for. What goals are you pursuing? What audience are you targeting? What value will your network bring to its members? First, you need to come up with a concept to build your further strategy. Especially if you are determined to monetize your network, you will have to devise points that differentiate you from your potential competitors.
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Choose your niche
The previous step takes you to determine your niche. Don’t try to cover all the topics at once: focus on a particular topic and elaborate on it. It’s totally fine if your niche is narrow. In fact, it could even be your competitive advantage. You can start from here and expand to other topics later when you establish your target audience.
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Establish your audience
Establish An audience is vital when you build a social media website. It goes hand in hand with the previous step and is a matter of your choice. It’s important to decide if you’re going to settle for a narrow circle of people or if you’re going to go with a mass demographic.You will have a better chance of success with the first option because trying to reach a large audience from the start is a pretty unfeasible task, made even more complicated by the main competitors in the market. So the best option for you will be to invite the people you know first. Your community won’t be huge at launch, but it will be your core audience that will allow you to grow even more.
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Get a domain name and build your website
When you know your objectives and audience, the first thing to do is to find a suitable domain name. The best solution is to buy a name that matches your network. You can learn more about the process of finding the perfect domain name here. However, with Ning, you can start creating your own social media channel simply by filling out a signup form. If you do not have a domain name, a native domain name (your_network_name.ning.com) will be provided. Hosting will also be included in your subscription plan.
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Personalize your website
It goes without saying that your network should be unique, easy to use and memorable. . For this reason, you need an overall theme, logo, and header image that is attractive and perfectly fits the purpose of your social media site.
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Choose the necessary features
You can then add all the features and options you need to create your perfect social network. This includes feed options, chat, audio and video apps, events, etc. To build a network with Ning, all you need to do is choose the desired features by checking the boxes on the list. -
Modify the design of your website
You certainly want your social network to look special. That is why it is important to have many customization options. The design section in Ning has an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, so you can try different design samples before choosing the right one that is in line with your vision. You can create your own social networks on the Ning 3.0 platform in a few minutes. This means you can start networking almost immediately.
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Develop content and promote your network
After you finish the creation process, you need to add content, attract and retain users, and work on growing your network actively. There are many ways to promote your community online. Here are some of them:
- Integrate your network with popular social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Google+, etc.; Use features like Like, Social Share, and Social Check In;
- Create an activity feed so everyone knows what you’re up to;
- Send invitation emails, newsletters and summaries for active and inactive members of your network;
- Optimize your content for search engines, get a semantic core and insert relevant keywords in your posts;
- Write and host guest posts;
- Create a dedicated mobile app;
- Advertise your network using Google AdSense, etc.
There are more options. Some of them are easy and some of them are complex and expensive. You can choose the ones that fit your purposes and development strategy.
Benefits of owning a personal social network
Having your own social network can bring you a lot in terms of personal development. It can make you more disciplined, organized, and consistent. Also, it will help you forge new relationships and make new friends. Using your networking website to share your expertise on the topic you’re interested in is a great way to have a lot of fun and keep in touch with those who share your enthusiasm.
What’s Also, create your own social media channel is the best thing you can do for your business. By doing so, you’ll improve your targeting skills, reach your customers more effectively, and gain a permanent source of feedback.
Custom social websites have many more advantages than popular social networks like Facebook. They are known for being customizable and flexible, allowing you to configure them in the way that allows you to achieve your goals. Among the most outstanding features that you can benefit from are:
- Full control over your audience: when you own your network, you can obtain a lot of information about its members – who are they, what interests them. This gives you an edge when it comes to targeted marketing.In addition, you are free to decide who can and who cannot be a member of your network.
- Detailed customization: build your personal social network, you can determine how it looks, by selecting a theme , background image, fonts and many other aspects of your website design. That being said, Ning offers a variety of comprehensive templates that can be further customized to your preferences.
- A wide range of monetization options – Unlike networking websites Standard social networks Social networks offer numerous ways to earn money from your content. For example, Ning offers options like Paid Access, Paid Membership, and Donations. You can also post ads on your site.
- Flexible content management: In your own network, only you decide what information is worth publishing and in what form. You can run your blog, post photos, post video and audio materials, etc. Also, with decent SEO, your informative content will appear in the search results of major search engines, making you more visible on the web.
It can add many other advantages as well. , such as faster customer support, a milder censorship policy, the ability to integrate with other social networks and third-party online resources, various communication options, real-time activity feeds, etc. a network on Ning, you can make use of all these features however you see fit!
Hopefully, this article convinced you that building a website like Facebook (or even better) isn’t that hard, especially when have an interesting idea. to build it. What will be the special feature of your network, is up to you. However, you can always count on Ning for everything related to building social networking websites from scratch.
Here you can get more helpful tips from networkers who have already built their social networking websites. social networks on the Ning platform. .
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