Social Sign-In
Make participation easy for both new and returning members. Allow Members to Sign Up and Sign In with Other Services. You have lots of choices, and you can choose which ones you allow for sign-up and sign-in. For example, if you don’t want any anonymous people on your network, you could choose to require all new members who sign-up to do so only with their Facebook account info. This might limit the number of people you ultimately attract, but it could be one way to ensure you are reaching the specific type of new member you’re trying to reach. Use the services that work with your audience. While you can change this at any time, as you might expect disabling a service will break the authentication history for members for that service. However, if you re-enable this service, members will only need to reauthorize the connection to their account to get back in.
What’s to Like
People love to like content on the Internet, and you have two main options: Network Like and Facebook Like. Network Likes show up on your network, and Facebook Likes show up on Facebook. You can use both of them or just stick with one. Or none. You can even choose specific features members can Like. Head to your Social Sharing page in the Social Site Manager section of your dashboard to set these up on your network!
Social commenting
Ning 3.0 Networks come with the ability to enable social commenting systems on blogs, forums or photos. You can integrate your content with Facebook or Disqus comments. Doing this enables non-members to join in on the discussion. Since it also requires these non-members to have an account with Facebook or Disqus, this helps ensure commenters are legitimate. If you have a feature that is visible to the masses, you’ll be able to take advantage of these social commenting options. Comments added to your network to a Facebook or Disqus commenting system also show up on that poster’s Facebook or Disqus profile.
Social sharing = public sharing
One key thing to keep in mind about your site is that you won’t be able to share content out to other locations if that content is private. This is great news if you desire a heightened level of privacy for your members. However, if you’re set on taking advantage of the viral effects that can come with sharing, you’ll need to open up your site or at least some page types to the public. You’ll want to think hard about this trade-off between privacy and openness. Of course, you can always change this at any time in your Site & Pages manager.
