The benefits of having your own community forum platform

Forum platforms have long been an ideal place for communities to form around shared interests. If you want to:

• find people who enjoy the same hobby,
• educate yourself around a topic or field,
• find resources for developing healthier lifestyle habits,
• or follow your favourite creators and influencers.

Online forum platforms allow people to come together and share their passions.

They are often made by creators and businesses to build a group of followers based around their product. In the best-case scenario, the users of these forum platforms develop a sense of community as they engage with one another, interact socially, and share experiences.

Whatever you’re passionate about, having a community forum platform filled with likeminded people gives you a home to discuss it.

Why build a community forum platform?

Community forum platforms provide specific services to help foster and enhance community spirit amongst members. Building a community forum platform offers plenty of benefits for creators and businesses.

Whatever the goal of your online forum platform, building a sense of community between members leads to greater engagement. And ultimately this can lead to greater monetisation. Whether you’re a:

• personal trainer or fitness coach,
• chef,
• fashion or lifestyle influencer,
• educator,
• or something completely different

Building a dedicated community forum platform allows you to gather all your followers into one place. From here you can monetise your content and deliver it directly to your community of engaged active members.

What do community forum platforms offer?

A community can form amongst users on a standard forum platform, but making use of a dedicated community forum platform helps ensure it. They provide a range of tools and features to help maximise engagement and foster a sense of belonging amongst members.

Disciple is a company that believes in communities and offers everything you need to build your own community forum platform. Don’t build a standard forum platform restricted to posts and comments. Incorporate community-oriented features like direct messages, group chats, event calendars, live streams with real-time chat, and more.

With Disciple, you get access to moderation tools and analytics to help you grow your community and foster the types of interactions you want. Integrate monetisation options directly into your forum platform so your community supports you directly, without having to go through intermediates.

The future of online community forums

Although online forums have been around for a long time now, pretty much since the beginning of the internet when bulletin boards ruled the web, online forums show no signs of dying out. In fact, the opposite is true. Online community forums are growing and are more popular than ever.

This can be explained by human nature. We all like to talk, be listened to, and listen to others. Well, most of us anyway. Antisocial people aside, discussion is a big part of all of our lives. We do it every day in real life, and online is just a reflection of real life after all.

But as technology changes, how can we expect to see online community forums change?

One thing is almost certain, that more and more businesses will set up community forums as a way to connect with customers, but also as a support network. 67% of consumers say that they’d rather use a support forum than traditional customer service. 

The other thing we’re likely to see more of in the future is private, exclusive community forums. Until now, many forums have been free to join, requiring just a simple sign-up. The big forums such as Mumsnet, DIYdoctor, etc. have relied on advertising revenue for monetisation. Ad blockers and increased mobile device use where traditional banner ads are less effective. Private forums with subscription membership, or tiered access to exclusive content, provide the solution to this problem.

Finally, the limitations of social media are opening the door to many businesses and individuals setting up independent online forums rather than relying on Facebook or Google Groups. Problems with security, privacy, lack of reach, and control of data, means that the social media giants are no longer as attractive as they once were.

All of these factors combined means that the future of online community forums looks very bright indeed.

Final words

Whatever you are passionate about, there is a world of people online to share knowledge, opinions, and thoughts with. Disciple lets you build a community forum platform to foster these interactions into something special.

Compared to typical online forum platforms, Disciple gives you the tools, features, and control to turn a disparate group of users with a shared interest into a real community.

By getting in touch today you can learn how to build a stable, easy-to-use platform, with regular updates that offer new and exciting ways to grow your community further.