Ning Niche Networking

I am a recent convert to the world of Ning, just after they reached over 200 000 networks! So yes, you can call me one of the slow early adopters, I call it a survival skill: Why go through all the pain when I can let my network try everything out and go on their recommendations!

After browsing around Ning for 10 minutes, I decided that this is a great place to create a presence for a very niche activity: Paragliding. Online, there are only about 5 paragliding blogs and maybe about 100k register pilots world wide, serious niche stuff! And so Cloudseekers was born. See my post about the idea, click here.

The growth of the network has been pretty decent especially taking into consideration the very small size of the online paragliding community. This response led my thoughts towards my real job which is now a ‘Snap Consultant’ and focuses on internal communications delivery software so naturally I am wanting to network with internal communicators in decent sized companies. Ning didn’t disappoint! A quick search on Ning and I came across this network http://internalcommunications.ning.com. Brilliant! Internal Comms is a sub set of communications which is a subset of marketing which is a sub set of business so this is a very well defined, small audience yet Ning has a network for it!

Ning certainly is niche networking at its best. You can set up Facebook groups for such niches but as we are all aware, activity ceases on these after about a week so this is a great way of keeping a very niche community active.

So my point is quite simple really, get on Ning, find your niche and network!

Feeling My Way Around Social Networks

Some of you are aware that I have recently become a bit of a Paragliding nutjob. I have found the sport, in the word’s Jerry MacGuire, completes me [two handed circle action for effect]. You see I like adventure and beautiful scenery but not activities that make me feel like I am going to die every second which made Paragliding a great choice as you only feel like you will die every few minutes.

So of course, I hit my first love, the Internet (not my Fiance, she’s my third love, in order of discovery not preference!) to find out more about my fourth love, Paragliding, only to be dismally disappointed by the quality and consistency of paragliding websites out here. I found myself wondering why no-one had created a great web presence for such a cool, aspirational sport.

The Light Bulb Moment

Ahhhh! And there it was. My second love (marketing) instincts kicked in, as they usually do when I am on the net. My marketing brain started spewing out jumbo about paragliding phsychometrics:

· High LSM participants, willing to spend good money on equipment and gadgets.

· Passionate and tight community.

· Well documented travellers and explorers.

· Hi technology usage and knowledge.

· Well defined niche.

· A very large niche, hundreds of thousands of participants worldwide.

· Multiple (and I mean plenty) monetization opportunities for a paragliding website.

· And no-one has secured this market online?!

And so of course I created a paragliding website or social network to be more accurate, called Cloudseekers using the uber-cool platform: Ning. Now the first release of Cloudseekers, as you see it now, is in its most basic format with the standard social network functions of sharing blogs, photos, videos etc. But the beauty of a niche social network, is that you can develop it specifically for that audience’s needs and be ‘everything for someone’ and not ‘everything for everyone’. Now all I need to do is find a decent developer for the phase two developments. Any recommendations?

Find more videos like this on Cloudseekers