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Steve Tan was born and raised in Singapore, and his journey to become a successful eCommerce entrepreneur has been filled with trials and tribulations. He now serves as an inspiration and consultant to a number of eCommerce entrepreneurs.

Have a look at eCommerce Elites Community

Video: How He Build A 9 Figure e-Commerce Empire | Steve Tan

Steve Tan runs the eCommerce Elites Mastermind, a Facebook community dedicated to the success of such eCommerce businesses.

Why Join eCommerce Elites Mastermind Facebook Group?

This Facebook group is for you if you are intending to start an ecommerce business or currently have a successful ecommerce store. General eCommerce subjects, Shopify and Magento tops, Facebook Ads for eCommerce companies, Social media marketing for online shops, and other topics are discussed in the group.

You can also learn about product sourcing, fulfilment for eCommerce businesses, internet traffic strategies, and conversion optimization.

Discuss topics such as eCommerce in general, Shopify or Magento advice, Facebook Ads, Social Media Marketing, and product sourcing, fulfilment, traffic, and conversion.

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About NodeBB

NodeBB is the next-generation forum software — it is powerful, mobile-ready, and simple to use. It is a good community forum platform worth considering.

NodeBB Features

1.NodeBB is a forum software that can be customized and is available as open source.

2.The forum software is responsive and works well on all devices, including mobile phones, tablets, and desktop computers.

3.Customization options for NodeBB include the ability to change the colors, icons, layout, and other branding components.

4.Additionally, for all of their enterprise customers who require bespoke forum software, they provide an in-house design service.

5.Topics and replies can be posted quickly and easily using the WYSIWYG editor. In addition, the forum software includes a Markdown editor for creating topics.

6.Using the real-time chat tool, you can communicate privately.

7.The ability to receive real-time notifications encourages your forum users to engage with other community members. Your members will receive immediate updates whenever someone follows them or likes their content on your site.

8.The ability to create read-only categories or to choose to fully hide a category from view is available.

9.You can also assign user roles to members of your community, such as designating someone as a moderator.

10.NodeBB’s administration system also allows you to create an unlimited number of admin and moderator accounts, which is quite convenient.

11.The real-time analytics feature of NodeBB allows you to keep track of what’s going on in your online community.

12.In addition, you can choose from over 500 different useful plugins and themes for your forum to enhance its functionality.

NodeBB Pricing

Village

$250/month.

suitable for small startups and businesses. It can handle up to 2 million monthly page views.

City

$750/month.

For growing startups and businesses. It offers up to 10 million monthly page views.

Metropolis

Contact Sales.

Suitable for large organizations that require custom online community solutions.

NodeBB Customers

Opera
Bathesda
Netgate
ITPROTV
Bleeding Edge
Moz

Upgrade as premium vendor by sponsoring

NodeBB Alternatives and Competitors

Circle Community Software

Tribe Community Platform

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An online community software platform is a SaaS product or enterprise software solution that can be used to build an online space where your members and customers can share their ideas, opinions, and basically interact with each other.

An online community platform can be used to unite or gather people of similar interests in an online space. 

For example, people who are interested in UX design or graphic design will be a part of the design community. Those who are interested in automobiles will be a part of the automobile community.

What is online community management system?

To put it simply, online community management system is a platform that encourages students or professionals with similar interests to engage with one another and share their ideas for the advancement of their field of interest through discussion and collaboration.

How can companies use community management software tools?

Corporates and brands can leverage online community software to build consumer communities for their products and services. These days, it is not enough if you do marketing for your products. You should engage your customers and let them share their feelings and emotions, or even grievances, associated with the product in a common space. 

Companies can thus easily solve customer problems in their own branded online community space and ensure that customers are eventually satisfied with the products or services being offered.

What tools are used to build online communities?

Chat rooms, newsletters, and forum software are all common tools used to build online communities. These days, the popular SaaS products offer platforms that are similar to the famous social networking platforms. So, community software products are evolving, and you can use any of these affordable SaaS products or expensive enterprise community software solutions to build your online community.

Why is paid community software used instead of using free tools?

A paid community software platform like Circle, Tribe, or others is used, especially since they help you own your online community data and content. You can also download the list of members of your community and move on to a new platform if you’d like to switch to a new community software.

Example: At any point in time, Facebook or any other social media platform might shut down your online community if their terms and conditions are not met. But when you run your community on a paid platform, you own the data and all the user-generated content is only going to benefit you, generating profits for your business.

Can we build successful online communities on Facebook groups itself?

Yes. There are countless successful online communities that are thriving on the Facebook groups platform. Simply said, you must determine if you want to run a branded online community or whether you want to run it for free on Facebook.

Venkat

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A few months ago, Circle Community Software Platform released a beta version of their events feature. Circle’s co-founder and CEO, Sid Yadav, published the following in their customer newsletter today.

The new Events feature has been released from beta and is now available to all Circle communities. Customers can now use Circle to manage all of their events as of today.

Here are a few quick highlights from the events that are covered on Circle:

1.Online and offline events may be created quickly and effortlessly. You can include dates and times as well as detailed descriptions and locations.

2.Collect RSVPs from your members in a simple manner.

3.Make it simple for your members to view all of the future events you have planned.

4.Give your members the ability to organize their own events.

5.Make your events more appealing to attendees by allowing them to be entered into their calendars and to receive reminders about them.

Here’s what’s possible through the Circle events feature.

1.In Circle, events are a new form of space. Online community managers can host three types of events:

1.Open events,

2.Private events, and

3.Secret events.

Events take happen on a specific date and at a specific time. Coaching calls, Q&As, panels, group sessions, and in-person gatherings are all common examples. You also have complete control over who sees and RSVPs to your community events.

2.By simply entering the event’s name, description, and location into the user-friendly event creation screen, you may create both virtual and offline events.

3.Members of the community can RSVP with a single click, add your events to their calendars, and receive automated reminders.

There’s more to the events feature on Circle.so

1.Live stream events

Next week, Circle is releasing their beta version of live streams. 

2.Recurring events

Are you conducting weekly events for your community members? Now, you can setup an event that recurds every week, or month, or day.

3.Add events to calendar

Increase event attendance by letting members easily subscribe to the events calendar in their native calendar apps like iCal, Gmail, and Outlook.

Read my exclusive review of Circle.so and consider signing up.

Venkat

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BetterMode Integration with Amplitude:

Amplitude is a powerful analytics platform that lets you track up to 10 million user actions every month for free! The integration between Tribe and Amplitude is simple and allows you to track key metrics for your online community.

You may use the data in this app to build different member groups, assess the conversion funnel, and track user retention. Tribe.so begins transmitting user activity and user characteristics to the Amplitude account as the integration is set up, allowing you to create a sophisticated report by analyzing the data.

Tribe & Amplitude Integration’s most common use-cases include:

Analyze the number of active users (e.g., Daily Active Users).

Measure the loyalty and retention of your community members.

Produce content generating reports (e.g., posts and replies).

Create activation funnels based on the actions of your members.

Learn how members progress through the many stages of the lifespan within your online community.

Do all Bettermode customers have access to Amplitude integration?

Customers on the Premium and Enterprise plans of Tribe have access to the Amplitude App integration. To set up the integration between Amplitude analytics and the Tribe community platform, you’ll also need to generate the Amplitude API key.

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About Hivebrite

Hivebrite has built a robust solution that enables their clients to effortlessly brand, modify, and engage their online communities in a simple and straightforward manner.

Hivebrite was founded in 2015 and has since established itself as one of the most popular community software products on the market.

Hivebrite use cases

1.Organizations can provide a dedicated networking area to their stakeholders with high-end design standards and a comprehensive range of features available today.

2.Hivebrite can used by nonprofit organizations to create a community for their volunteers and supporters.

3. Hivebrite is used by several leading universities to create secured student community.

4.Startups can use Hivebrite to share expertise and experiences, take advantage of the unique opportunities and stay in touch with other members of the community.

Hivebrite features

1.Student Community: Hiverbrite can be utilized to create a sense of belonging for alumni, allowing them to connect with one another, arrange events, and stay in contact with their university through the online community.

2.The Platform is user-friendly, flexible, and scalable to communities of varying sizes and can be used to serve the purpose of building online community in multiple industries.

3.Hivebrite is equipped with sophisticated data management capabilities.

4.There are two spaces that can be created with Hivebrite community software. A public space that is SEO-friendly as well as a social networking space.

5. Earn money through your online community.

It is possible to monetize your online community with Hivebrite’s capabilities. You can collect membership fees and sell tickets to your paid events online, if you have a website.

Hivebrite Pricing

I do not have pricing information about Hivebrite as of now. I’ll update once I learn about their pricing strategy. 

Hivebrite Video

Hivebrite – All-in-one, fully-branded community platform

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This is a free listing which I initially do for all software vendors. Write to me to choose the right community software for your business.

Venkat

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What is Bettermode?

Bettermode is one of my favorite SaaS-based online community software platforms, and I highly recommend it. The Toronto-based SaaS startup has built an amazing set of social engagement tools to run a successful online community.

(I removed affiliate link to Bettermode as that never helps me earn after all the hard work. I will only place links for monthly sponsors)

Bettermode Review: Pricing and features of this elegant community software platform

How I solved my client’s need for an online community?

For her online course, one of my clients wanted to create an online community. I gave her a few suggestions for solid community platforms.

She was looking for community software that was both feature-rich and cost-effective. Bettermode was recommended to her, and she signed up for a free trial. There’s no going back after that.

Using Bettermode’s Single Sign-On feature, she was able to integrate with her own platform. The software also comes with a comprehensive knowledge base that answers all of your questions and aids in the smooth development of your community.

What I enjoy about Bettermode personally is the flexibility with which it can be customized. You can even utilize it as a platform for internal knowledge base software for your customers or employees. 

Bettermode Use Cases

What I enjoy about Bettermode personally is the flexibility with which it can be customized. You can even utilize it as a platform for internal knowledge base software for your customers or employees. 

1. Entrepreneurs and members of the creative economy who want to build their own standalone community website.

2. Professionals who want to integrate Tribe into their current products and websites.

3.Online course creators who want to create a community website for their courses.

4. Life coaches and business coaches who want to provide better human interaction for their clients as an add-on to their coaching sessions,

5. SaaS companies can create a customer community using Tribe.so.

6. Bettermode is a fantastic alternative to knowledge base software. Startups can use it to create an internal knowledge base.

7. Anyone who wants to create an online community with elegant engagement tools should certainly try Tribe

8. Social networks that cater to certain niches.

Bettermode Features

1. The ability to customize all aspects of the community platform.

2. Omnichannel notifications

Integrate notifications into slack and other platforms to keep track of what’s happening in the community pages.

3. Bettermode is quick to load and simple to use.

4. Bettermode is flexible and feature-rich, allowing both enterprise customers and professionals in the creator economy to easily build their community.

5. Gamification features

6. The ability to form community groups, also known as sub-communities.

7. Custom Domain Name: Use your own domain name to launch your online community.

8. Widget-enabled community touch points

Create widgets to embed valuable components of the community inside your product or website. The widgets can also be designed to match your branding guidelines.

These features can be utilised by retailers and ecommerce businesses to engage customers and increase customer loyalty.

9. Bettermode API

All of the activities in your community are captured via a comprehensive API, which can be accessed with an API call from Tribe.

10. SEO-friendly pages

A community’s biggest advantage is user-generated content. But what I really like about Tribe is that it has built-in SEO best practices such as meta tags, schema markups, etc. to ensure the content ranks high in search engines. 

11. Elegant Composer

Believe me. I’ve used a few community management software solutions, but none of them provide the posting experience that Tribe delivers. You can upload media, mention other members, and embed third-party content using the composer, which is simple to use.

12. Activity feeds

The activity feed provides users with tailored and rich content based on their participation in the spaces and interaction with other members.

Bettermode offers fantastic branding capabilities

I’ve worked with some community software platforms where changing colors and other design elements requires a lot of effort and little technical knowledge.  You can change the look and feel of your community in real time using Bettermode.

The background color, text color, and header layout can all be changed.

How to use Bettermode to build a customer community?

I strongly advise startups and SaaS companies to use Tribe to build their customer community to hook prospects and customers to their brand. Running a customer community helps your support team because most of the queries or FAQs are easily accessed by new prospects or customers. Hence, your customer service representatives can concentrate on resolving crucial issues.

Rather than creating a community centered on your brand, you might focus on the industry in which your prospects are active. For instance, if your product is a SaaS company that sells email marketing software, you can develop a community dedicated solely to designers and authors of newsletters.

Thus, you can create an impact in the industry and naturally attract additional clients.

How secured is Bettermode?

Tribe protects the data of tens of thousands of its customers and end users. SSL encryption, data integrity, and systematic audits are all included.

Bettermode Pricing

Bettermode is reasonably priced. It’s neither too cheap nor too expensive to get started. If you already have a business in place, then, certainly you can manage to launch your online community using Tribe platform.

Bettermode review conclusion

I personally believe Bettermode is run by an amazing leadership team. They also have good customer support in place. I spent 2-3 days writing this review of the Bettermode community software platform because I believe in this product. So, give it a try. 

Please sign up with the below link. It would be great support!

Bettermode Updates

1.Bettermode integration

Bettermode has announced integration with Amplitude Analytics to track metrics for your online community.

This aids in the analysis of data about active users, the measurement of community member loyalty and retention, and the creation of activation funnels depending on member actions.

Bettermode Founders

Mohsen Malayeri, Co-founder
Siavash Mahmoudian, Co-founder
Soheil Alavi, Co-founder

Bettermode Headquarters

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Bettermode Acquisitions:

Tribe community platform acquired pe.ple.

Bettermode unding: $ 7.5M

Bettermode investors

Inovia Capital
Bessemer Venture Partners
Golden Ventures
CRV
Path Ventures
Next Canada

Bettermode Support

One of the best things about Tribe is that they have very good customer support and also an exclusive online community called Tribe Campfire where you can clarify your questions regarding the product.

Bettermode Alternatives

Circle.so: Community Software

Higher Logic Online Community

Flarum

Hivebrite

InSided Online Community Platform

Mighty Networks

Discourse

Bloomfire

Ning

Please contact me if you require assistance in choosing an online community software platform.

Venkat

Promote your Community

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Circle.so has released a member directory in their community software platform.

Benefits of member directory feature

Using the member directory, Admin and members will have a much simpler way discovering who else is in their community and connecting with others who have similar interests to their own.

The following are some examples of how to make use of the Circle.so member directory.

1.Use the location filter to find people in your city or in close proximity to you.

2.Use a keyword search to find members who have a specific role or interest in their headline or bio, and then contact them.

3.Remain in touch with other members in a given space(Forum category) .

Additional functionality will be added to the member directory module, including:

The Circle product team is already hard at work on upgrading the directory with the  following features:

1.Searching the directory for members based on their tag (eg: Founding Members)

2.You can create custom profile fields that will allow you to collect information that is important to your particular community.

Third, you have the option to choose which fields from your members’ profiles are displayed in the directory.

4.Filtering and sorting the directory prior to use (eg: show most active people first)

More readings: Circle.so review

Venkat

Promote your Community

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Why do I recommend Circle.so to create your online community? 

(Note – I wrote this review during early days of Circle.so and sent them good leads but the experience taught me not to trust any SaaS company’s affiliate stuff. I only promote those who pay monthly sponsorship fee)

Online communities are thriving, but you should choose a community platform that empowers you with all the features you need to create a successful community. If you wish to launch your own online community, I request you to sign up with Circle.so through the below link.

When you create a community by clicking on the above link, it supports my work. So, I will be pleased to feature your community on my blog when it’s launched. Note that I feature all the decent communities that are meant for a general audience. 

Video: Circle.so reviews

Why should you try the Circle.so community software platform?

It’s crucial to convey why I choose to endorse the Circle.so Community software platform over other options available. So, here are the justifications.

1. Circle.so is affordable.

I looked at a number of different community management software solutions, but none were as reasonably priced as Circle.so was. Yes, it is. I even wrote to the companies that compete with Circle. saying that they should consider lowering the price so that it will be easier for me to promote them, but no one pays attention to what I have to say.

The reason I believe Circle’s $39/month price tag is reasonable is because it includes all of the features essential for anyone interested in creating an online community to get started without having to worry about their monthly expenses.

Consider the following scenario: you want to start an online community in a specific field. You can get started with a 14-day free trial and then upgrade to the basic plan.

You could cancel the plan at any time if you chose to for whatever reason. The pricing may increase in the future, but I hope they maintain the current price, which allows anyone in the creator economy to create their own online community.

2. Circle.so Use Cases: Community Software for everyone

I personally believe Circle.so is a right community software platform for businesses of all kinds. It is an ideal community software platform for both enterprise clients who wish to establish a customer community and entrepreneurs who wish to launch their own online community.

Circle.so use cases for Enterprise organizations

Circle.so software can be purchased by a large venture capital funded startup or a SaaS company to run their customer community.

Circle.so use cases for internet entrepreneurs and creators

A small business owner or creator of an online course, a life coach or business coach, a dance or music instructor, or a consultant in any field can all purchase Circle.so to start their own online community.

3. Who should consider the Circle.so community management platform?

A SaaS company or startup can use Circle.so as their knowledge base, which also helps their customers learn more about the products and services being offered by engaging with each other. 

Apart from this, here’s why you should consider Circle.so.

1.Membership website.

2.Online course.

3.A community platform to support your podcast.

4.A community to engage with your newsletter subscribers.

It is a circle. can also be used as an alternative to club membership software.

6.Can be used by associations and community-based organizations.

7. Startups and SaaS products can use Circle.so to create customer communities.

8. Life and business coaches can provide a circle. as a result, community as an add-on

4. A Community Software with minimalistic UX Design

What I love about Circle.so community software is it’s minimalistic UX design. A SaaS product should be feature rich but also impressive when it comes to design aesthetics. There are options to tweak the frontend design but Circle.so looks amazing by default.

5. Circle.so Mobile App

Circle.so currently supports iOS app which is really awesome. Your community members can have the same experience in using the iOS App as they have on desktop. I hope they also consider releasing android app for Circle.so platform.

6. Configure a Custom Domain Name in Circle.so

Create your online community with your own domain name. It takes only a few simple steps to setup your domain name to launch your online community. 

Note that the setup is easy when you use a subdomain to run your online community.

7. A user-friendly login experience

Circle.so offers an elegant login experience. Community software should initially influence a website visitor to actually signup for the community. Circle does this impressively. They also offer a Single Sign-On feature when you use other membership management software. Circle supports Single Sign-On (SSO) via OAuth 2.0.

What’s the benefit of Single Sign-On?

SSO enables the integration of login accounts from your own platform.

Example: Let’s say you already have members registered on your WordPress website or Teachable course management website. Your members can login to Circle. so with their existing user credentials.

8. The ability to organize your forum into categories using spaces.

What are spaces in Circle.so community software?

Circle.so offers up-to 10 spaces in their starter package. Spaces are simply forum categories to organize the content and conversations in your online community. It’s also easy to edit these spaces, tweak them and change their URL slug.

9. Circle.so Events enables your members to quickly register for your events and webinars.

Managing a community and making it successful and active involves lots of hard work in terms of creating valuable content.  Circle.so offers you the ability to embed your live streams on YouTube and Vimeo Pro for your community members. (I have not tried this feature, though).

What I know is they have currently released their events feature for beta users. This means, you can list the events or webinars in an exclusive space. Your members can easily signup for the event as it’s organized elegantly with date and time.

10. Launch a paid community to earn money from your members.

Circle.so offers a paywall which you can use to make a few spaces or the whole community reserved for paid members. Circle.so can be integrated with Stripe for credit card payment processing from your members.

Remember, Stripe does not support collection of platform fees from a few countries. Write to Stripe’s customer support to clarify if they support your country. I don’t want you to launch an online community desiring to earn money when the payment processor does not support platform fee for your country. Of course, there are always other integrations you can try to charge your members. 

11. Circle.so Member Directory:

Circle.so has an amazing tech team and they keep releasing new features. One of them is a member directory. This enables you to find your community members based on the city using the location filter.

You can also look for members based on a specific role or their interests. Note that the member directory is visible by default only to the admin. You can enable or disable the member directory for your community members based on your requirements.

12. Circle.so pricing

As I had mentioned earlier one of the key reasons I love circle and recommend it to you is because of it’s affordable starter plan.

The basic plan offers up to 1,000 members, 10 spaces, Zapier integration and ability to run the community in a custom domain name.

Summary of Circle.so review:

Circle Community management software is one of my favorite community SaaS products. I have tried to launch a couple of online communities that used Circle.so and enjoyed its features. This will be the best community software platform for you to get started with little investment and create an impact through your own online community.

Circle.so review will be frequently updated. I will be happy to guide you in launching your online community.

Events feature in Circle.so

Circle announced they have launched an events feature for hundreds of communities hosted on their platform. This enables community managers to create online and offline events quickly. They can easily collect RSVPs from members of their community. Circle also enables you to live stream your online events.

More information about Circle.so

Circle.so Headquarters

New York, New York, United States

Founding year: 2020

Circle.so Founders

Sid Yadav, Co-founder and CEO

Andrew Guttormsen, Co-Founder

Rudy Santino, Co-founder

The leadership team at Circle.so

Karthik Ganesh, Chief Of Staff

Circle.so Funding

Total funding: $7.1M

Circle.so Logo

Investors

Notation Capital
BoxGroup
Sahil Lavingia
Ankur Nagpal and more.

Circle.so Alternatives

1. Tribe.so Community Platform

2. Slack

3. Disciple Community Software

4. Hivebrite: All-in-one community management platform

5. Discourse: Open source discussion platform

6. PeerBoard

7. Higher Logic

8. Ning: Social platform

Promote your Community

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