Grab my free PDF, Free Forever Toolkit. This toolkit contains the links to the free forever versions of a wide variety of resources that can help your business with marketing and design. From time to time, I will give some tips on how to use those resources.
If you’re building a community or membership for your customers or clients, then you’ll need a place to host it. While social media options, like Facebook groups or Instagram chat groups, might be enough for you, you can’t organize members into smaller groups inside the overarching group. So, if you’re looking to build a more complex community, then you should try the following applications.
As one of the most popular business communication apps, Slack has a professional feel. It also has a free version so that your community members can join without paying for the app itself. You can easily organize multiple chats and upload helpful information. It can be limiting at times, though, with communications older than 90 days being hidden on the free version. There are also restrictions on how many can join voice and video calls at a time. However, this can easily be supplemented with apps like Google Meet, which is also free.
If you’re looking for something that’s a little more all-encompassing, then I’d suggest you check out Discord. Originally built for gamers to be able to communicate both online while playing and offline, it has grown to include servers (their name for individual groups) for a wide variety of purposes. Just like Slack, you can organize chats and upload images and documents. With Discord though, you can also use voice and video chats directly in the app without limitations on the amount of people who can join.
Personally, I prefer Discord over Slack, but I have the advantage of being more comfortable with it from my years of mobile gaming. Both applications do the trick, however, so it’s just a matter of deciding which you like the feel of more.
All the best,
Ryanne Zender
Disclaimer: While marketing is based in part on statistics and psychology, it is not an exact science. Every business and market are unique. What may work for one business, will not necessarily work for another. There are no guarantees in marketing, and this post is for informational and educational purposes only and does not replace professional advice. You can check out the full list of disclaimers and disclosures here.
