Iām finally getting serious about building a paid community. I have a 15 k facebook group, a 5 k IP Board forum that grew with my website.
While everything was great up until 2015 / 2016. Ever since the engagement went down. Much less new subscribers. Also I have the gut feeling, that most smart people left.
The last weeks I tried circle, might networks and tribe.
Right now, mighty networks is in the lead, although I miss some flexibility. I like the activity streams, course functionality, and the possibility for building groups and topic sections. I can imagine it gets really vibrant with a few active members. Furthermore, MN has an app which is well rated in the app stores. Unfortunately, the app is not individually branded as long as you donāt pay 25000 $ a year for āmighty proā.
Circle and Tribe have been a bit disappointing. They are more or less a slack like chat channel. Itās all nice if I would use it as a free tool for my subscribers. But I feel for a paid community, it does not provide enough value.
Do you know any other community tools that are worth looking into?
I would choose Discourse if I would like to have a modern āoldā forum. Right now, Iām using Invision Board (ā https://forum.science-fitness.de/) already, which is ok. But itās mostly used by 5 very old members + an occasional question from new members here and there. By the way, itās free right now.
But I think these tools do not provide the feeling of community. They donāt allow the users to grow together. Itās not ālivingā. And certainly no one would pay for being part of it.
So what I need is a place, where people really like to be part of and find a lot of value. It will be a paid community, since I want to change my business model from selling e-books to something else.
As I said, mighty networks is in the lead right now. An alternative tool should provide similar features like:
activity streams
courses (with drip content)
mobile apps
chat
weekly e-mail digests
So basically, what MN provides. But I donāt like their design / UI ā¦ itās too confusing. In my opinion, not thoroughly thought through. Additionally, itās not possible to use a different language.
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.
my community is better suited to long-form communication imo, but the popular tools that fit that description arenāt my favorite.