Want some ready-made content? The Internet is full of public content you can leverage that’s directly related to the focus of your community. Pull some of that existing content directly into your Activity Feed using Ning’s Social Feed functionality, and viola — your empty community is populated with fresh content. Let’s imagine your community, Smooth Operators, is a place for saxophone enthusiasts who are both serious music fans and lighthearted followers of jazz culture:
- Facebook Page: Extend your social media presence to places like Facebook so you can feed more members into the funnel of your Ning community. Have you already created a Facebook Page for saxophone jazz fans? Plug in a feed of that content.
- Twitter Accounts: Maybe you want to feature a Twitter account like @saxophonesource that lists saxophones for sale; or @selmersaxes, a maker of quality saxophones; or that guy your members know as one of the most famous contemporary sax players around, @justkoz. Toss those into the mix.
- Twitter hashtags: Use Twitter hashtags or search terms. When people tweet about the #saxophone, it can show up in your community’s activity feed. Here’s an even better idea: Create your own custom hashtag to promote your community’s #smoothoperators voice on Twitter.
- RSS News Feeds: If you know many of your members read Jazzwise magazine, maybe they offer an RSS feed with jazz-related news. (They do!) Plug in that RSS feed for ongoing updates as they happen.
All of these are ways to populate your Activity Feed with content before anyone has even shown up. You’ll find all of these Social Feed options in the Ning Labs section of your Dashboard. They can add a lot of value for potential members who may see your site as a place that brings everything they’re interested in together into one handy online space.
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