I donāt think a platform really does that much to shape the impact of the community. Thatās really down to how you structure it and lead it.
Itās worth noting that Invision Community now has clubs functionality (example: Clubs - Invision Community) which can be a good way to host sub-communities and male them feel more secure. Itās based on member permissions, so you can add a paywall in front of a club if you wanted to.
I would also restructure your community to have a landing page in front of it that showcases feature user content and any of your own content. Hereās an example using Invision Community. The community itself can do with a custom header to focus on search and/or show your communities purpose. Also the announcement/rules is a little hostile so Iād rework that to be more guidance and nurturing.
Thank you, Matt. Appreciate your efforts. But I disagree with the notion that the platform does not that much to shape the community. I think the look and feel is critical.
Imo itās all about how it feels to be in the community environment. Circle feels different than Slack. Mighty Networks feels different from Invision Board or Discourse.
Funny sidenote: My classic forum is dominated by men. The facebook group members are mostly female.
I have been using Invision Board since many years. I see itās not working anymore for me. So, I want to try something else.
If courses are important, check out https://www.cahootlearning.com/ . They are based in Australia and they started as an LMS and thatās their āthingā but, they were in the process of introducing a nice community platform that sounds like itād work for you. (Disclosure: I havenāt seen it since the beginning of the year because I left the company that was using the platform.)
Thx Rosie, I werenāt aware of Memberful. Will have a look into it. Also discourse + Patreon.
Right now I still experiment with MN. Some features are nice. But I also think the UX is messy. Additionally itās not very flexible. + If I process my membership payments with MN I am basically stuck in their system for ever. Thats not good.
I tried to work around it with Sendowl payments (subscription) and Zapier ā¦ but it gets complicated quickly (invite links, account sync) and doesnt work smoothly.
I ve tried already paywalling some content with wordpress and member plugins. So I have some experience doing everything manually. Itās definitely the most flexible way but also very time consuming.
Have you heard of Outverse? They havenāt launched officially but I really like the direction theyāre going. Modern UI similar to Slack that is for forum-style posting. Also supports video.
It looks interesting, but I would never touch a new tool, it feels too risky. Iāve seen many new tools pivot or go in a direction that doesnāt alignā¦or just lose momentum and not develop new features.
thatās a good point. i guess i feel like there arenāt a lot of good options out there my community is better suited to long-form communication imo, but the popular tools that fit that description arenāt my favorite.
how hard is it to transition users to a different platform? is it a death sentence to a community or better described as a difficult process?
E.g. Going from a forum to Discord is going to have more drop-off than going from Invision to Discourse.
In any case, best chances of success come from:
Announcing the migration early and keeping members in the loop.
Transferring all users + data, 301 redirects, etcā¦ (especially for forums).
Onboarding super users/moderators/regulars first to help find & fix issues.
Then, making sure the UX is smooth and intuitive before bringing the rest of the members in.
Bottom line? You want this to be a milestone for the community, something that members are looking forward to and excited about, not a burden or something to get up in arms over.
Iām surprised by that. I find Circle and Tribe to be a middle ground between the familiar UX of Facebook Groups and the SEO-friendly threaded discussions of Discourse.
In fact, from what youāre describing of your audience + intentions to monetize through premium content, Circle seems like itād be right up your alley.
Right now, Iām about to fall in love with Ghost. Maybe I can also use the Discourse integration. Since Iām based in the EU I would also like to have paypal for payments (credit cards are only tolerated by 50% of my customers). I need to figure out how to accomplish that.
What happens now is that I try to shape my future product around the best technical solutions available. Not the other way around. I cannot stress enough how important it is that the user experience is smooth and clean. Finally, it has to feel right for the customer. Otherwise, you produce a shitload of friction for them and also on your side. In my experience, this breaks almost every endeavor in the long term.
I just want to echo my agreement with your sentiment.
Far all too often, the webmasters and forum admins of old used to just follow the misguided āField of Dreamsā analogy - that if you build it, they (presumably, members) will come. But the reality proves quite the opposite: that you need to identify the demand of what your community seeks, and instead provide it incrementally, aligning your asks of your visitors, members, and subscribers directly with their levels of engagement.
For technology, this also means delivering something exceptional, modern, intuitive, and simple. It absolutely has to feel right. āFrictionā is often over-used as an excuse to not innovate, in my opinion, but to be truly frictionless, you have to be willing to experiment with alternative pathways for users to access your content. A/B testing is an art more so than a science, but it should be attempted at every level, beginning with your Ghost layouts, information architecture, and taxonomy.
Really looking forward to seeing your community come together!
my community is better suited to long-form communication imo, but the popular tools that fit that description arenāt my favorite.