Online Community Platforms vs. Social Media – The Great Debate

In the community management profession, there’s a bit of a debate around whether it makes sense to build your community on social media or not. The argument on both ends is logical. Social media allows you to meet your members where they’re already engaging. Community allows you to create the experiences your community wants and protect their data.When is social media a good idea when building community versus an online community platform?

The answer is…it depends. Full transparency, for organizations/associations and brands I 100% do not recommend that you build your community on social media for sustainability and longevity. That’s not to say that it cannot be done, but when you think about how the data is maintained, how much control you have over user experience, and what your long-term strategy is around developing a closer relationship with your members/customers, there’s only so far social media will take you.

Social media can be a great place to get in front of your community when they don’t already know you exist. The notion of meeting people where they are makes it easy for them to engage with you without taking them out of normal rhythms and habits that they have already formed. For instance, creating a Facebook group for women who surf to share tips on technique and safety might be the best way to get in front of your ideal community member since she may already be participating in a Facebook group about surfing.

Same goes for anything else that might be incredibly niche. If your community is focused on a very specific area, it might be a good idea to start building that community in social spaces where they are already gathering. Say you love gardening. Your favorite plant to garden is hostas and some of the gardening groups you belong in have a decent number of “hosta fanatics,” as well, but you haven’t necessarily created a level of trust or a sense of community with those individuals yet. Instead of looking to create a separate, owned community, it may not be a bad idea to start a group in that same space for lovers of hostas so that you can start to build that level of trust and engagement.

In either of these cases (and other use cases that I haven’t covered here), the big question you’ll want to answer is whether it makes sense to keep these communities on social for the long-term.

However, when we’re talking about associations, starting on social media is the tip of the iceberg. My opinion is that this is not a long-term strategy for engagement for online community. It can help jumpstart your efforts, but you should be building a plan for migration to an owned platform at some point 2-3 years into launching on social if that’s the direction you choose to take. Even better would be making the right investments up front, but not all associations are in the position to do so at the beginning. You may be thinking “why would I purchase a community solution when I can build on social for virtually nothing?”

BECAUSE YOU CAN PROTECT YOUR MEMBER’S DATA AND CUSTOMIZE THE MEMBER EXPERIENCE.

As an association, this should be of utmost importance to you. When you build on someone else’s platform where you have no control over experience and how data is handled, it limits your ability to create a connection with your members and protect them and their information from bad actors. You also likely have little information that you can extract from that platform to understand your community member’s needs, how they are engaging, what’s working well, and where you have opportunities.

I believe that there’s too much at stake with your members for social channels to be a long-term, sustainable solution for building community for your association. I think it’s fine to get people in your community door, but it will not be what keeps them.

So where do we land on the great social media vs. community debate?Use your best judgement. As I stated, both have their place, but if you’re looking for longevity, good user experience, member loyalty, and trust and safety, I strongly urge you to make the investment in hiring a community manager (or consultant), if you don’t already have one, who can help assess your need and help you plan for the future. Guided by your community strategy, making informed, strategic decisions about where your community lives is the best way to set it up for success.

Where do you currently build community? If you’re using social media, do you have plans to migrate to an online community platform? Why or why not? Tell us in the comments below!