How to Create a Social Network For a Niche-Related Community

An online community is a great place for people with the same interest to share their thought, experiences and stories with each other. This course will teach you how to build a social network that would allow your members to make friendship connections, to send messages to each other, to share ideas and statuses on a site-wide activity stream, and you will also learn how to create niche-related groups to make your network even more interesting. You don't need to have any former experience with Wordpress and/or Buddypress, which are the platforms we will use in this course, since I show you how to use them.

Course Structure

The course is built in a "Learn by Watching" way, which is my favourite way of teaching and learning. I simply show you where I click and how I do everything on my screen, so you can see and imitate in your own system.

The course will take about 2 hours to complete and I suggest you watch it on a tablet if you own one, so you can put it beside your computer while you work on your community website.

Here are the steps we will go through in this course:

• Website hosting - you will need one to get your platform online
• Wordpress installation
• Adding Wordpress (free) theme
• Learn Wordpress basics - content, menus, theme options, plugins, widgets
• Buddypress installation and configuration
• Network components and how to work with them

What kind of network will i learn to build

The network you will build depends on your needs. I will give you all the tools you can use in order to create a network with the most possibilities Buddypress can provide, and it's yours to take what you need from it. You can build a public community for anyone to join. You can build a secret community for specific people with restricted content to make sure it stays private. You can build a half-public half-private community with the help of groups - where you can decide which ones are public, which ones are restricted and which ones are even hidden from a guest viewer.

I will teach you how to work with every component of Buddypress, and you can decide which one you need and want to use. If you don't want to let your members create friendship connections - you can deactivate this option. If you don't need groups - don't use them. If you don't want your members to be able to communicate through private messages - just don't allow it. Buddypress is such a flexible platform that you can really fit it to your needs and even change your configurations with a click of a button later on if you decide you want to add/remove a specific component.

Who should take this course?

• Anyone looking for people with a common interest to talk and share thoughts with
• Bloggers who want to take their blog to a new level and start an online community where they can engage with their readers
• Families who want to keep in touch in a special way - by creating a private family online community where they can share photos, videos and experiences with each other
• Businesses who want to raise credibility and connections with their customers by creating a warm space where they can keep in touch with them and talk about their products/services
• Promoters of a specific product who want to promote it in a unique way and create a social network around it
• Group of parents who want to create a convenient place where they can discuss about their children's activities for example - a community for a sport team, a class, etc.
• Group of friends who want to share more than words with each other by creating a (private) online community where they can communicate

Additional CostsThe only additional cost you might have (unless you already have a hosting account) is to the hosting provider. The costs vary from 4$-12$ per month depending on the company, and you should do your research about which provider would fit your website needs the most. In the course, you will see how I sign up with one of the hosting companies and get a free domain for the first year.You might also be interested in getting a premium Wordpress theme, but that is not a necessity - the theme we will work within this course is free and is good enough to keep it this way and to create a beautiful website and network.

What are the requirements?

• Basic computer knowledge
• Not being afraid of trying new and exciting things like getting a website online!

What am I going to get from this course?

• Build a beautiful, fully functional online network ready to welcome new members
• Create a public or private online community
• Work with Wordpress and Buddypress
• Configure the various network abilities
• Take control of any aspect of the network as the system administrator

What is the target audience?

• This course is meant for new and advanced Wordpress users who want to get into the online communities world
• No prior website building experience is needed
• Anyone who wants to create a place where they can share thoughts, photos, videos and experiences with a group of people should take this course