In addition, it has some unique features like mentor matching, which make it possible to achieve high levels of community engagement. Higher Logic is a specialized community builder for associations. Focus on associations is the core of their product, even though they also cater to corporate organizations. A forum software like Discourse isn’t supposed to do much for engaging community members.
Facebook Groups – Best Free Community Platform
You can run any type of community, charge for access or perks, and stay fully in control — with no ads, no random restrictions, and built-in tools to grow and monetize your space. If you’re starting from scratch, focus on growing an audience in parallel — email list, social followers, or partnerships with creators in your niche. The more people who hear about it before launch, the faster it grows after. Free social platforms are easy to start on and come with built-in audiences, but they also come with rules, ads, and limits you can’t control.
This dependence on Google makes it challenging for these platforms to grow and thrive independently. A dedicated platform like GroupApp provides continuity and focus. It keeps discussions, resources, courses, and events in one branded space—not scattered across Zoom, Slack, and email. This unified experience reduces complexity for you and makes participation simple for members, strengthening the whole community.
Experts Share Top Tips For Community Management + Examples
- Podia is an all-in-one platform designed for creators, providing a comprehensive solution for selling online courses, digital downloads, and memberships.
- There are many options online, some hosting hundreds of people at one time, or you can make your own.
- Bettermode starts at $4,788 a year against Circle’s $89 a month, and I worked through what the five-figure tier buys separately.
- Chances are your community platform won’t function in isolation.
Gamification encourages member engagement with badges, reputation points, or special status. If you’re unsure how to keep your members active and engaged, here are a few ideas to get you started. Additionally, you can guarantee exclusivity or monetize the community using membership features like member logins and invitations.
Step 1: Define Your Community Purpose And Goals
The following table maps out a list of common stakeholders, their strategic value, and the types of tactics they might implement with your community. There are benefits to running your community strategy through a combination of free and owned communities. You’ll also want some tangible metrics, called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure how successful you are at reaching your goals.
It integrates with various third-party tools, offering flexibility to organizations with complex needs. Hivebrite is a powerful and fully customizable community management platform tailored for organizations, alumni networks, and professional associations. It supports engagement, networking, and member collaboration, providing tools to manage events, content, and member directories. The platform offers a built-in community dashboard that acts as a central hub for interaction, allowing members to connect, share insights, and collaborate effectively. Every community is unique, so the platform should offer robust customization options. A user-friendly interface is essential for both admins and community members, greatly influencing the overall user experience.
On top of that, it comes with a resource library, a blog, a community, an app directory, events, demos, and the Slack Certified program. Event communities are centered around organizing and participating in events, both online and offline. Platforms like Eventbrite and Meetup enable users to engage in pre-event and post-event discussions, fostering networking opportunities and extending the overall event experience. Heartbeat is a strong choice if you’re building an online learning community and want to integrate course delivery directly into the platform.
Hivebrite is a community platform built specifically for professional and alumni networks, although it can be used for other things. It includes a content management system to organize and publish content, dedicated subgroups where students and alumni can connect, a branded mobile app, and a job board feature. You can create spaces and dedicate them to either discussions, chat, courses, or events.
In these sorts of situations, a platform that lets you build a community for free and just charges a small transaction fee per subscription or sale would make perfect sense for you. The last pricing option, Enterprise, requires you to contact Bettermode’s sales team, and it includes a guaranteed SLA, data residency, a type 2 SOC, dedicated account support, and more. Mighty Networks centers everything around an activity feed, with chat, events, and a lightweight course library to keep members moving without overwhelm. Discord organizes conversations into channels with DMs, voice, video, roles, and bots. It’s fantastic for engagement, but native monetization is limited outside the us. Each Mighty Network comes with Zoom capability built-in, and one click will create an event in your Mighty Network that will automatically generate a Zoom meeting link.
From subscription plans to matchmaking logic to content structure. Feedback loops are essential—not just for satisfaction, but survival. Use your moderation strategy, layout, and access rules to support the value you promised. If something doesn’t help members solve problems, it’s probably noise. If you set up a discussion forum when your members prefer direct networking, or skip onboarding flows when you have dozens of member types, confusion spreads.
Effective community management involves continuously monitoring and analyzing how members interact with your platform. Most online community platforms offer analytics tools that track engagement metrics such as post activity, event attendance, and user interaction within forums and messaging. Thinkific is a top-notch platform to build online communities while creating and monetizing courses. As an all-in-one solution, it is the best platform to build online communities that support learning, engagement, and networking among members. Its unique features cater to creators and learners alike, setting it apart from other community platforms. Kajabi is an all-in-one platform designed for creators and entrepreneurs who want to build and sell online courses, memberships, and digital products.
It also has some useful marketing tools, things like https://www.pinterest.com/ladate_/ customer sales funnels, email, and affiliate programs. You’ll learn what your audience actually wants, helping you refine your products, offers, and content faster. You can host any type of community — free or paid — and customize it exactly how you want. Share content, manage members, and process payments in one place. Whether you’re a local business, a digital creator, or an influencer building new income streams, a thriving community keeps your audience close and engaged.
This integration ensures a cohesive experience for both community members and administrators. It’s crucial to choose a platform that can scale with the growth of your community. Anticipate future needs and select a platform that can accommodate an increasing number of members and a growing volume of content. Ensure that the platform’s infrastructure can handle increased activity without compromising performance. Reign Theme does not currently have verified ratings on G2 or Capterra.
Conduct regular surveys to gauge member satisfaction and suggestions, and analyze engagement metrics for trends while looking for optimization opportunities. If you want to get deeper insights into your members’ needs and preferences, you can also seek qualitative feedback through interviews or focus groups. The benefits of building a community are plenty and their increasing popularity proves a lot in terms of their use, especially by modern entrepreneurs. Reign is ideal for developers, site builders, and organizations that want full ownership of their community infrastructure. Offers email support, live onboarding sessions, and a resource hub with videos and templates. Support is provided via documentation, a searchable help center, and an active user community.