7 Ways To Start Your Own Social Network

So you want to start your own social network? That can actually work wonders for your blog as long as you play your cards right. If you are trying to start your very own Facebook and go head to head with the real one, then you are going to have issues. But there are situations where you can start a social network about your niche and have a lot of success with it as well. Creating a social network around your blog can solidify your community and help you take your blog to the next level. It’s not going to be easy, and you are going to do a lot of planning before launching your own social network. But you won’t have to spend a fortune to get started. Not when you can use these 6 social networking platforms to get the job done:

BuddyPress: BuddyPress is very dear to my heart as it’s created by the people behind WordPress. It’s very similar to what we have come to see with WordPress and can be enhanced with themes and scripts. It’s open source, so you have a lot of flexibility there as well.

Elgg: Elgg is a very powerful social networking platform that enables you to create your very own Facebook-like social network fast. Your users can create their own blogs, forums, and groups. It also helps that you can take advantage of third-party enhancements to offer even more features to your visitors.

Pligg: Pligg is another powerful social networking platform that enables you to create your own Digg-like website fast. It’s a bit tougher to customize and the code is not as easy to figure out. But the platform does save you money and can be enhanced through third-party themes and plugins.

Ning: Ning does not need any introduction. The platform is designed to help you create your own social network online fast. You can use the free option to create a social network quickly. The premium option allows you to use Ning on your own domain and gives you more control as well.

WordPress MU: very similar to WordPress, but it comes handy if you are planning to create your own blog network. Your visitors can start their own WordPress blog and have you host it for them.

Social Go: another social networking solution that has a little bit of everything. There are plenty of widgets and themes that you can pick up to give your social network a different look and feel. It’s mostly designed for those who are new to this business. But you can always go with its advanced plans.

There you have it. 6 powerful social networking platforms that enable you create your own social network service fast.