Online Branding with Ning

Four days ago, Ning celebrated the one millionth social network created on its platform. The site, which allows individuals to create their own social networking sites, has amassed 22 million users (six million active users) in just two years, and yet few online brand managers even seem to know it exists.

How has this little-publicized startup reached so many people so quickly? CEO Gina Bianchini contends that no one else is thinking about people with a focus on passions. Ning, however, is all about encouraging users to congregate around their interests. Because of this highly-niche grouping, Ning is an ideal tool for online brand managers to create conversations or add to discussions.

There are a number of cases that brand managers should look at for best practices.

Adidas, for example, created a human resources site on Ning just a couple of months ago. Already, the site is an enormous success: 3,600 members from across the globe, more than 50 blogs, forums, and discussion about how to make adidas a better place to work.

Pat Coyle, online sports marketer extraordinaire, built a Ning site to helps industry members network. Sports businesspeople assemble themselves into subgroups (team marketing, sponsorship, collegiate marketing & NCAA, among others) to share ideas, discuss events, and talk about industry trends.

Ning is simple to set up, but also allows network administrators to customize their offerings. Kicks on Fire is currently running a contest, for example, where members who reTweet their message can win a pair of Nike Air Yeezys. UFC fighter BJ Penn has a shop to sell apparel to his 81,000 members and fans, while Veloist lets users map and share bike routes.

Ning is far from a perfect solution. Here are a few of the issues brand managers face when considering whether to start a site.

1. Spammers. Many sites quickly get bombarded by users trying to push a product or service that has no place on your site. Ning doesn’t offer flagging or similarly helpful anti-spamming measures, so administrators often spend too much time cleaning forums and blocking offenders.

2. Brand control. Ning is a great way to offer a voice to niche fans, but online brand managers should carefully consider whether the goals of the organization could be better met through a company Web site. A brand gives up a certain amount of control in exchange for the ease-of-use Ning provides.

3. Generic features. While Ning lets administrators create their own features or choose from preset forms, the look and feel of a Ning site is as generic as a MySpace page. Sure, you can upload a unique background, but Ning sites generally have few feature distinctions that brands might want to set themselves apart.