What tools/software are you using for your community?
Hi Indie community,
Community building is tough, I have tried to learn from many, but I would say building and maintaining a community can be as hard as to create a solo-founder community.
I have tried to study as much as possible so we can help what is the goal for each community, and of course decided that this is not for me, at least now to be an active community member but more a supporter.
I have seen multiple platforms that support community building and we are seeing two categories:
- Slack-like communities (yen.chat, slack.com, and I am sure there are at least 10 to 20 more)
- Facebook-like communities (circle.so, mightynetworks.com, and possible other hundred options)
What do you think is better for you?
My answer was:
Analyzing both you have pros and cons for each, I like the slack-like for real-time conversation, but it gets cluttered and information get lost easily if you are trying to work unsynchronized. Facebook-like is better for reporting status and engaging community with offline resources, but is difficult to get an answer when you are looking to have that now.
I believe the future relies to have both connected and with additional features to enhance your members, though the user target will differ depending on their needs. Many indie community managers like to update status and provide a lot of offline information, though trying to get it active all the time is a challenge so they chose provide daily or weekly updates. Others want to provide a real-time engagement and bring into the idea that slack is for them.
I have seen both fail, and the learning experience getting from them is obvious:
- Slack-like, you need to have a very active community (you can be the kick-starter, but that should change over time or you will lose steam) members needs to constantly be engaged in any way possible for them to join the conversation and keep the community active. Really difficult and I feel that slack is not for communities but for teams.
- Facebook-like, you need to be a good planner. Have everything schedule week after week, so it shows up frequently. This helps your community to get engaged and then you can sync-up in frequent workshops and events that make it easier for them to enjoy and feel inclusive. In this case you need to be a content warrior so you keep moving the needle. You are the community.
Our software Team Coaches started with a common idea to make it inclusive for companies to run their innovative program and as per customer request we have been discussing for months on what is the best way to adapt.
We made the decision to launch a Facebook-like adaptable community which has a lot of features for sharing content.
You can DM me to get a free trial link.
