There are hundreds of community management tools today, but what should you use? Is there one size fits all platform that does it? Or is it necessary to use multiple tools to achieve an engaging community for your brands or business?
Community is the #1 thing that will help grow your brand or business in 2023. Big tech companies like Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are building products to include a better community management experience. Why?
Because community is something that is never going to die – no matter how big technology gets, or how messy the world’s economy gets.
The truth is, forming communities and bonds with others is just human nature. Community is what keeps us alive, what keeps us happy, and what keeps us improving. That’s why if you haven’t started focusing on building a solid community experience around your product – it’s time to start.
So, here are 10 top community management tools and platforms you should use in building your community.
The 10 Best Community Management Tools in 2023
1. Email Marketing Software
If you’re trying to grow a community and build your follower base, you should first dive into email marketing. Many believe that email marketing is dead. After all, who wants to get more emails in their inbox every morning? But the truth is – email marketing is actually one of the most effective ways of keeping your audience engaged. It’s a great way to make extra sales for your brand and business. In 2022, email marketers claim that there’s a rise in engagement of 77% over the last year, and global revenue from email marketing is projected to hit nearly USD $11 billion by the end of 2023.
Source: HubSpot
So, what email marketing tools you should use?
If you’re a small brand getting started in email marketing as an attempt to grow followers for future product launches, Substack is a great place to begin. It’s a simple, user-friendly platform that shares your emails to your subscribers and publicly posts them on your Substack page. It will act as a normal emailing software while also helping new users discover you through the Substack platform.
This is a great way to start getting eyes on your brand and begin to build a following. Once you do this, you can begin offering free products and start directing people to join your more established community on a more community-focused platform.
However, if you’re looking to encourage your existing user base to join in on a community product you have and engage further with your brand, you can use a more formal email marketing software like MailChimp or Klaviyo. (MailChimp is free to use until you hit your first 2,000 subscribers)
These are great tools to help you start your email marketing journey. It will give people a taste of the content and perks they’ll get if they join your community product. Both of these platforms allow you a relatively good amount of customization.
2. Facebook Groups
Although there are plenty of downsides to Facebook groups, they are still one of the most popular ways to build a community around the world.
It has various features that let you share images, videos, events, and more. However, the customization of the community management experience is low, and there are plenty of malfunctions and hackers to be aware of. Yet, it still tends to be a popular go-to place for a lot of us when looking for advice and community support on a problem we’re having.
The other upside to Facebook groups is the platform isn’t just focused on a specific demographic or industry. You can have a Facebook group dedicated to crypto, content creation, business, real estate – whatever your heart desires. This is because there’s still a large mix of different demographics that are active on Facebook, and it’s still the largest social media platform to date. So if you’re looking for a free, easy way to start building a community and engagement across your user base, try building a Facebook group to start.
3. Discord
Especially in recent years, Discord has been blowing up in popularity across various communities.
Discord used to be mainly popular amongst tech-interested communities, from gamers to crypto-enthusiasts. However, it’s been expanding its reach and is now used for a lot of different communities with different focuses. It’s used in educational settings, as a general place to hang out and chat with friends, as well as a place for influencers to host private group chats with their followers.
Discord allows you to connect through different channels, having an organized interface for users to engage with each other, and find the content that they need. If you haven’t started an exclusive Discord group for your customers to engage with each other and the faces of your brand – it might be a great place for you to start.
If you have a community page on another platform, Discord can also be a great platform to integrate with if you want to add discussion pages to organize your topics and customize the user experience.
4. Notion
Building a community is about sharing exclusive content, allowing your audience to participate, and collaborating with them to help them feel part of something bigger. With that said, a great platform that can help you do this, while also keeping all of your back-end stuff organized, is Notion.
This planning, organization, and collaboration app helps you not only organize your life and whatever work you have to put into your community – but it’s also a great way to collaborate on things with your members.
Notion allows you to write documents, spreadsheets, and more – and share them with your community members. You can choose to allow editing access or simply viewing access for whoever you share it with. It has similar features to Google Drive, but it’s a bit more focused on organization, collaboration, and customizability. It’s great to use within the community, as well as within your community operations team – this way, you keep everything organized, all together in one place.
Not to mention, you can use the free version of the app to get started.
5. Asana
Another incredibly helpful app that can assist you in building your community, particularly from the back end, is Asana.
While Notion is focused more on customization and sharing documents, Asana is mainly to help you organize your team, your tasks, and operations behind the scenes.
You can create spreadsheets of sorts, but you can’t create documents with customization options that Notion or Google has. However, Asana is a leader when it comes to task management and team organization. You also get a solid, linked overview of your projects that you can view in multiple different layouts– like calendars, lists, or boards.
Whatever way you work best to stay productive, Asana is there to help you do it. This is also ideal for people who like a bit more of a pre-structured organizational system rather than one with optimal customization abilities, like Notion.
There’s also a free version of Asana you can try out before diving into the full-paid subscription.
6. Nas.io
Nas.io is another community management tool and platform on its way to becoming the newest, biggest community builder yet. It already has tons of big influencers on board building communities on Nas.io, like Nas Daily.
The Nas.io platform allows you to join communities from top creators and business people who have taught classes on Nas Academy in the past. But it’s not limited to this – anybody, anywhere can create a community about any topic. If you are looking to host a community with optimal opportunities for integration, features like in-platform video players, pre-curated content libraries, and more… this is the place to do it. The best part? It’s all for free. Check out Nas.io here.
7. Uscreen
If you’re a video content creator, Uscreen is one of the best places to start earning through paid memberships. This platform allows you to create an exclusive video streaming experience for your community. They aim to help you build your own “Netflix” that you can monetize and control. First, by building your landing page using templates you can modify it with custom CSS or HTML.
You can upload your video content or invite your community to your live stream on your webpage or app. Your members can download your video, create their playlists, and leave their comments. If you want to build more connections in your community, they can join your private or public channels.
In terms of services, Uscreen gives its creators 1:1 support for business and content strategy, making sure that your content aligns with your target market. Creators get full control of their customers’ data and level up their lead generation using over 1,000 integrations to tools like Mailchimp, Salesforce, and ActiveCampaign.
8. Zoom
Before COVID-19, Zoom needed a bit more explanation in order to convince you why it’s so useful for meeting up with colleagues and having live sessions with teammates. But I think your experience with it throughout the past 2.5 years has pretty much summed it up.
But for a quick recap anyway: Zoom lets you meet virtually through video or audio calls with anybody, anywhere at any time. It allows you to use effects and backgrounds, plus it gives you optimal control to hold engaging presentations and meetings.
If you want some insider hacks to make your live sessions on Zoom a bit smoother and more entertaining – here are some quick tips to get you started.
9. Memberspace
If you’re looking for a membership platform where you can offer both paid and free subscriptions for your community product, Memberspace is a great place to do it. Unlike Facebook groups, you have to pay a fee to host your community but it’s worth it because there are plenty more customization options, and the platform is designed for community building.
You can convert a lot of free users over to your subscribed version with the payment options and proper marketing. It’s a great way to earn extra revenue and build community at the same time – without completely turning away users who aren’t convinced they want to pay upfront.
You can host an unlimited amount of members, whether they are paid members or free members, and you can connect up to 2 websites to the platform. There are integration options and more to create a customized experience for your members.
10. Circle
If you’re looking for another community management tool that’s a step up from your Facebook group, investing in a more community-focused and customizable platform like Circle is a perfect way to go. The former VP of Product at the popular learning platform, Teachable, actually built Circle as a platform.
While working at Teachable, Sid Yadav thought that their product lacked a community element to make it more successful. He also saw that building community experiences within a platform like Teachable is necessary to turn it into a successful product.
So, after a lot of thought, he went off to build his own community product.
Circle is now a highly successful community-building platform that gives you thousands of integrations, advanced analytics and so much more to help community managers like you build the best experience possible for your users.
But Circle isn’t the only one. There are other platforms that are similar to Circle that are still big in the community-building space right now – like Mighty Networks, and code-free building platforms like Disciple.
Why should you use Community Management Tools?
During the rise of the creator economy, many brands and businesses took the opportunity to reach more people. They focused on forming relationships with creators for brand deals, user-generated content, and more. Now that almost everyone has jumped into the trend, another one is on the rise – and that is communities.
Now, brands and businesses are focusing on building communities amongst their audience. It’s just a matter of who does it better and faster. That’s why you need these community management tools. They will literally help your brand or business become more efficient in building a solid community.
Now is the perfect time to create your community, keep people engaged, and grow your brand in 2023. And with the help of community management tools, you can easily do all of that efficiently. Make sure to check out Nas.io for an all-in-one solution for managing and monetizing your community.
