Which is the best platform to build an online community?

Zeng
50 replies

Replies

Neil Roy
I know a lot of us are trying to build communities across different spaces - from Fb, Tw, Slack, Reddit & now Discord. While I think it totally depends on your ICP. For example, my ICP (eCommerce - brands & agencies) are active across different channels, depending on how dedicatedly the community drivers are carrying out rituals. My group is trying something separate, a community built on circle.so, to create exclusivity, regular ritual automations, and using circle.so UI which makes consumption of content a lot easier, like this: https://community.dtcdrive.com/c...
Neil Roy
Thanks @zeng glad this was helpful!
Saul Fleischman
Depends. Will you be actually talking, If so, Discord. If it will be text-based, Reddit or Slack.
Dave Schools
We're building Superwave. It's Slack married Notion. Good for discussing content on your own platform. Don't have to rely on big tech social networks. It's in beta and built by a stealth team at Hopin
Zeng
@daveschools_ Wow. Sounds amazing when you said Slack married Notion. Can't wait!
Mehdi Rifai
We built a community on Slack and it works pretty well for our target persona. In general I would say it depends on who your customers are and what do you want to do with the community.
Prem Gohil
as it depends on the specific needs and goals of the community. Some popular options include social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as dedicated community-building platforms like Discourse and Mighty Networks.
Swapnil D Puranik
I am part of two Circle.so communities - while the experience is good, their mobile interface and app leaves a lot to ask for. My unpopular opinion is to stick with basics and on platforms where your prospective community members are most comfortable with (bonus if they are already spending time on that platform). WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack are all great choices. I am not on Discord - can't comment on that.
Upen V
Zero To Founder
Zero To Founder
Using Circle for https://microsaasidea.com So far, no issues. But I have seen people using Discord too.
Zeng
@upen946 thanks for sharing!
Vitaly Krenel
I've been looking for a while for different tools and right now stopped at 2 choices: — Discord — we use it for an investment automation platform, looks great so far for ~100 people. — Circle.so — didn't use it, but looks really promising to me. Would love to try it when I have a chance. A bit pricy though.
I would say Twitter and PH :) Still can't figure out Reddit but would love to do so
Kyle Tummonds
From my experience, I found that Reddit is a great place to build a community. In addition, if you can offer several mediums for a community to grow, I've found that this provides better results. If you have a reddit community, you can also guide these users to a discord channel as well. This way, the conversation can continue outside of your main posts. It's also really good for support if you are offering a product.
Kyle Tummonds
@kivaujla Absolutely! It's astonishing the type of communities that you can find. There's literally a community for anything you can think of.
Apollon Latsoudis
@kyle_tummonds Solid choice. Reddit has many sub communities that have very specific themes thus meaning that you can find anything you wish. You may nurture niche products, cultivate relationships and build small but strong communities. I personally prefer discord as it allows for better channel optimization, it allows bots, sub channels connected to other channels, has an outreach to web3 as well and many other perks (social features).
Kiv Aujla
@kyle_tummonds second this! Reddit is, of the community focused platforms, the best that's out there. For now, anyway.
Kyle Tummonds
@apollon440 Yes, the Reddit sub-communities make it a unique platform for building a genuine community. And I agree Discord allows great automation to make your community while you sleep!
Nikolai Stosch
We created frond.com and successfully launched it on Product Hunt. Our goal is to offer a great user experience that strips away the technical look and feel of community platforms while still providing all the features that professional admins expect.
David Orlic
Noticing that no one has mentioned WhatsApp? I find it to be incredibly efficient to get small communities off the ground before moving to another platform – and who knows, with WhatsApp's new Communities feature, it might work for larger communities as well. What do you think?
Heleana Grace
In general, I'd say you can't go wrong with PH, Discord, or Reddit. But your audience may be more active on other platforms, so it's best to choose based on whatever group of people you are trying to reach.
Jerry
I love using Discord because it's highly adaptable and easy to use. It can also connect to many other tools. However, it does have a few downsides, such as limited discoverability and a learning curve that might take some time to get used to
Nilan Saha
Twitter is hands down the best for communities around tech. If you are targeting a much older demographic then maybe include Facebook too.
Zeng
@nilans Older = Facebook🤣🤣
Nilan Saha
@zeng Haha a lot of people still use FB in that demographic
Steve Hopkins
Ive seen plenty of startups use Discord or Slack. Ghost.io and Substack are great if you are also publishing/writing insights. Circle.so is good for your own forum or a simple Buddypress/Wordpress equivalent. Depending on the type of people you want to join your community, I would utilise free platforms, social media groups where they are, utilise customers to an email list/forum/invite to community platform. Depends if its product orientated community/content orientated or for social.