Choose a community management software adapted to your needs is essential for creating an engaged and dynamic community.
The right community management software should not only make it easier to manage your members, but also offer powerful tools for animating, building loyalty and organising your actions in order to manage your community effectively.
In this article, we'll guide you through the process of choosing the right community management software that matches your needs, while maximising the impact on your members' engagement.
How to choose best community platform to help you manage and lead your community? Let's find out.
1. Membership management and levels : a key element of good community management software.
A good community management software must above all enable you to manage your members smoothly.
This includes the ability to create several membership levels.This will make it possible to differentiate access to the content and services on offer.
For example, a status assigned to a "Premium" membership may be provide access to exclusive resources or reserved events to members with this premium status.
Conversely, it is possible to assign a "Guest" status to a member in order to provide limited access to content or events for a limited period of time to give them a few weeks to discover the benefits of joining your community.
A community management software facilitates these tasks, allowing administrators to structure the community as required.
Manage member companies: simplify the management and global renewal of attached members.
In addition to managing individual members, it is essential that your community management platform can also take charge of the management of member companies.
This ensures better organisation and simplified monitoring of the companies that are part of the community.
A key element is the ability to easily attach several members to the same member company. This not only simplifies the management of access and rights for each member linked to a company.
A community software makes it easier to the overall membership renewal for all the members of a member company.
A online community platform which includes management of member companies, helps you to optimise administrative follow-up and engagement of companies.
Payment and renewal of memberships
Member management must include the possibility of pay directly for membership via the platform.This simplifies the management of renewals.
This allows process automation and reduces the administrative tasks associated with membership, freeing up your time to concentrate on your core business:engaging your community.
2. Directory of members and companies : an essential tool for strengthening interaction
Having a directory of members integrated into your community management platform is a major feature in facilitating connections and strengthening the sense of belonging.
This directory enables members to get to know each other and to search for specific profiles according to their skills, interests or location, thereby creating opportunities for collaboration and knowledge-sharing within the community.
The directory of members is a prerequisite in the choice of your community management softwarewhile offering the additional possibility of managing a company directory members and partners to raise the profile of your members' activities within the community.
In addition, a directory of member companies and partners allows you to see which companies are associated with the community, enhancing opportunities for partnerships and professional exchanges.
A community management software which includes these features not only improves the visibility of members and companies, but also strengthens the sense of belonging and collaboration within the community.
Why is a members' directory useful?
For members, a community directory is a powerful tool that simplifies interactions.
By making each person's key information visible, it enables users to find experts on a specific subject, contact other members to exchange ideas, or make professional contacts more easily.
For example, in a professional community,a directory enables each member to discover the skills and experience of others, thereby encouraging collaboration. The ROI (Return on Investment) for the members of your community will be all the greater.
Directory of companies and partners
A directory of member companies or partners also strengthens the credibility of your community.
Members can identify which companies are associated with the community, giving them information about potential partners or future collaborations.
It also helps to promote partner companies, giving them valuable visibility within a community of which they are a part.
A structured directory for both members and companies, is therefore an excellent way of improving internal interaction while strengthening the sense of belonging and exchanges within the community.
3. Group management : organise and segment your community effectively
A community management platform allows you to create and manage groups according to the specific needs of members. Groups are often useful in helping to structure your community as it develops.
Groups can be managed to create sub-communities, clubs, commissions, committees, local branches, etc., or segmented by profession, business sector or geographical area.
Whether for public groups, moderate or private.This flexibility is essential to facilitate the organisation and running of the community.
A good community management software must offer this possibility, while guaranteeing personalised access rights for each group.
Public, moderated or private groups
Flexibility in group management is essential for structuring your communication and interactions within the community. You should be able to structure your groups at least like this:
- Public groups: opened to all members, these groups are ideal for increasing the sense of belonging, easily broken down by profession, by theme, by sector...
- Moderate groups: requires validation by the administrator before accessing the content, thus guaranteeing a certain level of control.
- Private groups: accessible by invitation only, perfect for confidential exchanges and giving a feeling of exclusivity under your control.
4. Event management and promotion : fundamental for your community management software.
Events are key to leading a community and keep it active.
A high-performance platform to help you organise your events must include functions dedicated to event management and promotion.
A community management platform must propose the management of a events agenda.This will enable members to easily register and keep up to date with your upcoming events.
A good community management software makes it easier not only to manage registrations, but also to promote events to members. Optimised event management improves member involvement and participation in community life.
Diary and registration management
The ability to manage a events agenda. allows the community to find out about upcoming events.
This agenda must include managing registrations and deregistrations simply and intuitively.
A good event management tool should also make it possible to present speakers, partnersand provide all the necessary information about the event.
What's more, adding professional or personal calendar is an asset that makes organisation easier for members.
Promoting and managing events in a fluid way reinforces engagement and allows members to come together around powerful moments, whether online or face-to-face.
Finally, you must of course be able to send e-mails or notifications to members to alert them to a new event and have access to the list of registered participants on the day.
5. Personalised registration forms : collect qualified data to better manage your community
A community management platform must offer customisable registration forms to enable the collect qualified data as soon as members join the community.
This enables you to improve your knowledge of your members, to better understand their needs, to adapt content and to segment members more finely according to their interests or objectives.
6. News feed : animate and inform your community at all times
A news feed integrated community management platform is essential for share important information on a regular basis to animate your community.
This news feed allows you to share posts, articles, announcements, videos, photos.... while encouraging interaction between members.
Obviously, benefiting from a community mobile application in your colours (white label) is a great help in improving your proximity and engagement with your members.
A mobile application to animate your community gives your members access to all the news and information they need at any time, right in their pocket.
Thanks to a community management software with a news feed, members can interact quickly via comments and mentions of other members, reinforcing cohesion and exchanges within the community.
Media integration and social interaction
A good platform should meet the standards expected by your members, particularly when compared with the experience on public social networks.
The integration of videos, photos and documents in publications to make news more attractive is essential.
In addition, it is important to allow members to react with comments, "likes", and even mention other members in publications to encourage exchanges and strengthen cohesion.
This feature creates an area of continuous exchange where members can stay informed and easily interact with the content disseminated by the community.
7. Integrated e-mailing : sidélising and engaging your community to improve retention.
E-mailing is an essential tool for for a community animation platform performance.
A Community Platform must incorporate an e-mailing system which can be used to send personalised transactional e-mails (membership confirmations, reminders, etc.) and to conduct targeted e-mail campaigns.
This allows you to segment your members according to their interests and send them relevant, personalised messages.
Of course, it is important that a good community management software can help you monitor statistical results to assess the impact of your campaigns directly via your community management platform.
A community management platform should enabletransactional e-mails and personalized e-mail campaigns targeted.
8. Managing and classifying content Structure your resources with the right community management software.
The success of a community management platform is also based on its ability to organise and structure the content shared with members.
Whether it's videos, podcasts, documents, articles or discussion forums.For this reason, it's essential to have a clear and intuitive filing system. These classifications can, of course, be managed at both community and group (or sub-community) level.
Why is content ranking important?
Easy access to resources means members can quickly find the information they need.
If content is poorly organised, members risk becoming disengaged because they can't find what they're looking for.
A community management software must therefore enable resources to be classified intuitively, by category or sub-category, and provide access to a search engine to ensure that each member has easy access to articles, documents, videos, podcasts or discussion topics that interest him.
9. Dashboards and data monitoring : measure the impact of your actions using your community management software.
Finally, for manage a community effectively, it is crucial to be able to measure the impact of your actions through a detailed dashboard.
This will provide you with precise indicators (KPI's) on member engagement, event attendance and the success of email campaigns.
Adapting your strategy using data
The data allows you to identify what works and adjust your strategy accordingly.
If certain actions do not generate the desired effect, you can adjust your content or campaigns to optimise engagement.
10. Personalise your brand universe (white-label community platform and mobile application)
Stand out from the crowd with a community platform and mobile application is an essential element in asserting your brand and your community's mission.
The power of a community management platform is also its customisation as close as possible to your graphic charter.
Being able to adapt the look and feel of the platform to the colours and visual identity of your community strengthens the sense of belonging and immerse them in a world that is consistent with your brand.
A community platform and mobile application visually aligned with your values and brand image makes the user experience more immersive and memorable.
Conclusion:
The essential features of good community management software
Choosing the best community management software for your organisation is a combination of features that make it easier to manage members, organise groups and promote events.
Customising your community platformYou'll also want to consider the integration of an interactive news feed to improve your communication, and the intuitive management of content.
Thanks to these features in your community management software, you can not only manage your community efficiently, save time, but also maximise engagement and the satisfaction of your members.
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