- 4 min read

The 7 Best Community Building Tools for 2022

Are you disheartened by the seemingly endless amounts of software, platforms and plugins, all claiming to offer the best service to help you build your community and increase revenue?

You probably already use some community-building tools, like LinkedIn or Facebook groups, to help you foster your professional network and reach customers, employees and fellow entrepreneurs. But where can you go beyond these obvious choices to help you build your community?

Sometimes, the sheer amount of options on offer can feel overwhelming.

But don’t panic. Instead, take a look below at some of the seven highest-rated, best value-for-money (or free!) community-building tools currently being used by professionals in 2022.

Quick Note: we've actually compared >20 different tools so you don't need to - the full research is available for download exclusively to members. Here's a sneak peak

Tribe

When it comes to community building, Tribe is one of the best platforms on offer, enabling you to create a fully customisable experience, from your logo and domain, to colour choices and widgets.

On this platform, you can make videos, post pictures, and write articles, as well as categorise your content and ask your community questions.

It works well on both web and mobile browsers, although unfortunately there is currently no mobile app. Plus, Tribe’s native gamification tools also help drive engagement in your community.

It has both a free version and paid plans with better ‘apps’ to help you elevate your community.

Trello

Staying organised is crucial to running a business and maintaining contacts in your community.

Enter, Trello: a visual collaboration tool that helps you run your community smoothly.

Here’s how it works: create ‘lanes’ for different projects, then add a series of cards (tasks) to go underneath each of them. Anyone from your team can add or edit these, enabling you to easily collaborate on different projects, just like reorganising post-it notes on a wall!

Trello is an excellent tool for remote working and enables you to maximise community building by staying on top of tasks, events and deadlines.

And their basic plan is free!

Referral Factory

Referral Factory is an easy to use referral platform that enables you to turn happy customers into your brand’s very own advocates, helping you to build your community and increase revenue.

Referral Factory uses referral marketing to help you ‘build your own referral program in under five minutes,’ and all in one, simple, easy to customise software.

With referral templates for every kind of business, Referral Factory is a good fit due to its large range of choices, the ability to set your own rewards, and tailored campaigns that you can create for your business, employing your own artistic vision.

Starting at 95 dollars a month for the starter plan, it is one of the more affordable referral program softwares currently on the market.

Buffer

Another great way to interact with and build your community is through Buffer, an application that enables you to pre-schedule social media content that you want to post at key, effective times during the week.

With Buffer, you can sit down and schedule an entire week's worth of content for a range of social media apps, saving you valuable time. Buffer then does the rest for you, driving your interaction with your desired community.

And the standard plan is free! Check out Buffer’s website for their other, paid plans too.

Discourse

Another must-have to help you build your community is Discourse, one of the best platforms to help you communicate with your target audience; whether that looks like partaking in discussions with customers, or chatting to your team members.

Discourse allows you to engage in discussions that are easily searchable and categorizable, enabling you to easily create a hub for common questions, interesting discussion, useful ideas and a lot more, all in one customisable, safe space.

Keep in mind, however, that you need a domain to use Discourse, though it’s free if you do (unless you want to manage forum hosting, in which case you have to pay a monthly fee).

Mighty networks

For many businesses, a popular option is Mighty Networks, a platform that goes above and beyond in helping you build your community.

From live streams, to online courses, to the ability to run your own events, Mighty Networks combines a plethora of different elements, such as article writing, polls, and direct messaging, and puts it all in one place: your own website.

It is known for bringing small business owners together, with some highly rated educational programs and a calendar of events. What’s more, Mighty Networks also enables you to charge customers for access.

Starting at 33 dollars a month, there are a range of different plans on offer. For such a comprehensive platform, paying a monthly fee is well worth it.

Socio

And last but not least, Socio. You would struggle to find a platform that creates as much engagement with your community as Socio, which enables you to keep communication active with virtual roundtables, topic-based discussions, virtual events, games, and much more.

Moreover, with Socio, content is highly customizable, and can be adapted to your chosen membership levels. It is the go-to for virtual or hybrid events, enabling you to share and manage content, network, and make posts, all in one place.

Unfortunately, you have to submit your email to request a custom quote, so go and check out what Socio has to offer before you make a decision.

Do any of these sound like the perfect fit? Then what are you waiting for? It’s time to start building your professional community beyond LinkedIn…

Caroline Winter is a current MA student in Creative Writing, based in London. She has experience working as an editor, translator, and writer on a series of different projects and topics. She is excited to be collaborating alongside The Industry Leaders as a content creator and can be found on LinkedIn

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