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Keep it simple
Choosing a community platform, an idea to add value to your community if you're a SaaS/B2B/community platform business, 10 community business models with real world examples and how much revenue they generate
Carmen Taubman
November 08, 2024
Welcome to the Community Coach newsletter, a value packed read
for community builders who are trying to bring people together vs. pull them apart…
📚 Community 101: Choosing a community platform - keep it simple
🔥 This trend could help you add more value to your community
👋 Answering your questions: “Have you written articles or content with examples of paid communities and what models work?”
Community 101: Choosing a community platform
Every conversation I have with a potential new client always touches on the topic of “which community platform should I be using?” or “am I using the right one?”.
I go into a lot more detail on the calls, but I want to provide some (hopefully) helpful advice if you’ve also get this same question currently.
Keep it simple.
Focus on one or two features that will really move the needle for your community.
You need to KNOW what those are and not make assumptions (do your member research).
Once you know what that is, you can narrow down your search and find the best platform that has those features.
Features could be:
“Async video interactions” → Swarm
“Real time chat + audio chat” → Discord
“Collaborate on projects” → Slack
etc
Other key factors:
I would always advise to use a platform that members are familiar using
(that has those features).
If that doesn’t apply then try to find the platform with the best UX/UI.
The trend of adding more value
it's business audit time
drop your startup below and I'll tell you one thing you can improve
i'll be replying to 40+ people
— GREG ISENBERG (@gregisenberg)
10:29 PM • Oct 26, 2024
You may have seen more of the “big players” on Twitter/X writing tweets like the above - offering their advice to a number of people who respond. I’ve noticed it a lot more than usual lately.
It’s offering value back to their audience and you can apply the same format to your own community.
For example: if you’re a community platform/SaaS/B2B and you are building a community of your customers…
Analyse the top performers that use your platform/service (look at revenue stats, retention levels, engagement rates or whatever else determines success). If you don’t have this information then start collecting it for later - these are useful insights.
Use these insights to offer your customers advice on how they can achieve similar results. You can do this in a similar format to the tweet above, or host a webinar, write blog articles etc. You choose the format that best works for your customers to derive value from your insights.
Constantly ask for feedback from your community on what strategies are working well for them (and add these into future insights)
Repeat the above as you continue to gather more information/insights over time
Here’s an example of how Mighty Networks does this.
Answering your questions
gm Carmen, have you written articles or content with examples of paid communities and what models work?
— OrnΞllaWeb3.eth 📍 DevCon SEA 🇹🇭 (@OrnellaWeb3)
8:33 AM • Oct 15, 2024
Epic question! I actually decided to do a deep dive on this and created a video for my Youtube channel - addressing all the different types of ways you can monetize your community, examples of REAL communities that exist for each model + how much revenue they generate.
Watch the full video below:
Got a question for me? DM me on Twitter and ask away. Your question may be answered in a future newsletter (and I’ll reply to everyone who asks).
Until next time,
Carmen
Community Coach
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