If you're looking to grow your business's reach, joining online communities is a great way to do so. Your brand can easily reach prospects you might not have met otherwise. You'll be able to connect with various suppliers and potential partners and even learn some trade secrets. If you're a startup, below are ten of the best community platforms you should be joining.
What are Community Platforms? Also known as virtual communities, community platforms are online spaces where people with common interests meet, socialize, and engage. They can build relationships here, form partnerships, and trade knowledge with each other. The best part about community platforms is the chance to meet and engage with people from across the globe and learn from them.
10 Best Community Platforms You Can Join Below is our list of online community platforms worth checking out and joining:
1. Thinkific If you have online courses to sell while building connections with other like-minded entrepreneurs, Thinkific is a great option. It has all the tools and features you need to create your courses and market them. What's best is that you can create your courses quickly, even without technical know-how.
Thinkific is affordable, making it an excellent choice for small businesses and startups. You can start with its free plan, which you can upgrade to any premium plan. Pricing starts at $49 per month.
2. Bettermode An all-in-one community platform for startups, Bettermode offers a wide array of features to support rising businesses. It has an intuitive interface, which makes it easy for brands to create forums, events, Q&As, product updates, and many others. It quickly integrates with business tools such as HubSpot, Zapier, and Salesforce.
Bettermode offers flexible pricing that suits any size of business. You can try this community platform with its free trial plan for 14 days. Or, you can start with its two plans, with pricing pegged at $599 per month.
3. Influitive A robust community platform, Influitive has a feature-packed environment that can be a valuable asset for any startup. It can help your brand build connections, engage with customers, and promote your brand. It has an intuitive user interface, gamification features, and the ability to integrate with many marketing tools.
Influitive has activation, advocacy, loyalty, rewards, personalization, targeting, and analytics features. All these for $1,999 per month. It can be a bit pricey for startups, but customers have reported a 363% ROI from closed-won opportunities, which makes every penny worth it.
4. Mighty Networks A powerful online community platform, Mighty Networks will let you host discussions, contests, and blog posts that can help promote your brand. With this software, you can grow and support a community with people with the same goals and values.
Mighty Network's features and tools will let you build courses that have the ability to impact more people. It caters to various business sizes but has an affordable plan for startups. Pricing starts at $33 per month if billed annually.
5. V Bulletin One of the best community platforms to host and manage discussions and forums is V Bulletin . Many of its users swear by its flexibility and its robustness. It has a user-friendly interface, extensive personalization options, and seamless integrations with multiple web technologies.
V Bulletin is a scalable platform that adapts to a startup's evolving needs. It does not have a free plan, but you can try it out with its free trial. Pricing starts at $179.00.
6. Circle A one-stop-shop community platform, Circle lets you create a branded community with a custom domain name. You can host live Q&As, masterclasses, coaching, and many others. It offers advanced analytics features, product integrations, and multiple revenue options.
Circle has a 14-day trial, which you can use for free. You can upgrade to any of its premium plans to enjoy more features. Pricing starts at $99 per month, but if you pay annually, you'll save more.
7. Higher Logic Vanilla Formerly known as Vanilla Forums, Higher Logic Vanilla is an online community platform that connects businesses with their customers. You can run various communities and sub-communities that you can customize for a particular purpose. Users can easily mention others, leave comments, ask questions, or send direct messages.
Higher Logic Vanilla is trusted by more than 300 brands all over the globe. Its pricing starts at $600, but you need to contact their sales team to get the exact quotes.
8. PeerBoard A highly versatile and flexible community platform, PeerBoard provides you with a comprehensive solution to establish and grow communities. Its user-friendly interface, extensive customization options, and integration capabilities allow for better audience engagement and knowledge-sharing.
Now known as Docebo, you can try it with its free plan. To enjoy more of its features, you can upgrade to its paid plans with pricing that starts at $29 per month and $23 if you pay annually.
9. Zapnito One of the best enterprise-grade community platforms, Zapnito can help you create, design, grow, and manage your customer community. With it, you can create open and private rooms, discussion boards, content publishing, events, courses, and many others. It also provides strategic support that brings together over 500 community leaders you and your users can learn from, connect, and share with.
Contact their sales team to get quotes and pricing breakdowns.
10. Wild Apricot Popular with community organizations, non-profits, clubs, and trade associations, Wild Apricot is a cloud-based membership management system. Its template-based web design allows you several options for event planning, donations, and many other solutions. It is rich in features such as financial reporting and email marketing tools, among many others.
Wild Apricot offers a 30-day free trial with no setup charges. It has seven plans suitable for any business, with pricing starting at $60 per month.
Final Thoughts The world of online community platforms abounds with many innovative solutions. While there are plenty to choose from, this list of the best community platforms narrow your choices. Each offering unique features, you only need to consider what your brand needs to make a decision.
