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At Loyal, feedback from our community — clients, colleagues, partners, friends, and even sometimes family — is invaluable. In fact, feedback is one of the leading benefits of having a community. It leads to product and service improvements, open channels of communication, customer insight, and sometimes, new product ideas.
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Switching community platforms is one of the riskiest things you can do. The benefits are usually minimal and the dangers are colossal. Unless you picked a terrible platform initially, changing a platform won't help you much. If you want a better community, it's rarely a new platform you need, it's a new and better approach to community management.
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On April 3rd, Richard Millington will host a free webinar answering your community questions he hasn't covered before. Want to learn more about how to pull the best content from your community, how to enlist volunteers, or how to develop your community strategy?
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Why I Don't Like The Term "Troll"

I'm finding more and more that I'm uncomfortable with the way that the term "troll" is becoming a catch-all term for "person who's doing something I don't like." It's an easy word to use: say "troll" and everyone says "Ahh," and nods their head in empathy. I've used this shorthand myself. And I'm resolving to stop using it and find out what's really behind the "troll."
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Today, we're proud to announce a project that's been in the works for a while. A collaboration with Community Pioneer F. Randall Farmer to produce this white paper: "Five Questions for Selecting an Online Community Platform."
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Last week, David Spinks and the team at TheCommunityManager.com gathered together over 300 community professionals for a first year conference that proved to be highly polished and extremely informative - CMX Summit. Here are our takeaways:
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On Thursday, we had the pleasure of hosting Ric Dragon, CEO and co-founder of DragonSearch, for an enlightening hour on Creating Healthy Communities in Social Media. From the origins of the term "community" to how dysfunctional communities are like families, this was a fast-paced hour packed with information.
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If an organization is investing in a community, they deserve to know what they’re getting for their money. The most common objections to measuring this ROI are 1) You can’t measure everything 2) it’s not about ROI. The first is right, but you can still be accurate. The second is misguided (what does engagement eventually lead to if not greater profits?). There are a few techniques that can really help here.
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On Wednesday, Richard Millington led the latest webinar in our Community Talks series on Community Platform Design and Development. Your community's design is the first thing that prospective members see when they visit your community. Are you putting your best foot forward?
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The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company prides itself on being the gold standard for hospitality across the world and their record backs up that pride: the list of awards bestowed to their properties is quite impressive. Their service has received note, as well, making them only hotel company to receive the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award from the United States Department of Commerce twice. What can you, as a community manager, take from their example?
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Every few weeks, Ning invites a leading expert to discuss trending topics and best practices for community management. Watch the recordings here.

More than two million people have built a branded social network on Ning. Many of these customers now enjoy thriving online communities. You can find a few of those success stories here.

Learn what it takes to thrive and see what it is possible to achieve with Ning.


Growing a thriving online community is one of the most rewarding things you can do.

Our goal at Ning is to make building a community dead simple. We provide an incredibly reliable, popular, and easy-to-use platform so you can focus on cultivating your community.

Learn how to start your community in minutes.

Have you considered monetizing your community? Download your free copy of Monetizing Online Forums by Patrick O'Keefe to learn what methods are available, how to implement them, and how you can benefit today.