Member categories and badges are a great way to recognize and reward members on your Ning Network.
As a Network Creator, you can create categories and assign members to them. If you have administrators who help moderate content and provide support on your network, create an “Administrator” category and badge for them. Use it to highlight who your members can turn to for assistance. If you want to send a special message or provide an exclusive piece of content to a specific set of members (for example, your featured members), create a category, assign your members to it and send them a broadcast message by selecting this new category from your Message Broadcast feature.
For those skilled at CSS, you can even customize a member profile page based on the category to which you’ve assigned them.
When you create a category, you can additionally create a corresponding member badge to display as image or text over a member’s profile photo. Here is an example of a featured member with a crown icon for a member badge:
You’ll see member badges like the crown icon on members’ profile photos if they have been assigned to a category with a badge. Categories can be created without badges, too, if you just want to provide additional managerial functionality but not have this category be apparent to your members.
By default, all members belong to the “Member” category. While this category can’t be edited or deleted, feel free to create a new category and bulk assign all of your members to it as you see fit.
Badges will appear in most locations (member content and profile pages), but keep in mind there are a few locations in which you won’t see them, such as Chat or on the sign in and sign up pages.