The Community Nerd: Picking a Platform

Hi Stranger! I swear I blinked and it was Wednesday... in February. What is going on? Is time moving oddly quick for you too?

Yesterday I had the pleasure of virtually sitting down with a bunch of 8th grade strangers to talk about what I do for work. And it was awesome. It was fun to take a whole bunch of steps back, find a different way to frame my work, and help them explore a future career choice.

I kicked off the class by introducing what I do, what I wanted to do as a kid, and then the big pieces of my job - science, art, math, and research. And then I let the students drive the discussion. And Stranger, you would have LOVED the questions. I miss having the curiosity of a child.

Interestingly enough, a lot of the questions veered towards platforms. The students knew and used various social media platforms, and they were curious how exactly communities worked on those platforms and on dedicated platforms.

And that got me thinking that you and I should probably chat about platforms too. I mean, at this point you know what I do, how I got here, differences between the types of online content/member management, and we've even discussed value. So are you ready to start thinking about where your community will live?

The reality is that I could spend all year talking about platforms as I'm just as much a platform nerd as I am a data nerd. But for the sake of this random collision, I'll keep it short and sweet. But, feel free to ask me questions if you'd like!

In the world of communities, there are so many different choices ranging from social media platforms, to self-hosted, to SaaS, and more. Some communities live within a Facebook group. Others call a subreddit home. Plenty have a dedicated platform that lives in a cloud somewhere. And others choose to host the platform on their own servers. There are platforms that are free and others that cost millions to run every year. And functionality... so much different functionality.

But don't feel overwhelmed. This is the fun part. This is shopping... platform nerd edition.

The first big question to ask yourself is budget. Fortunately there is a platform for every budget, but it's still important to know since we don't want to be falling in love with any Lamborghini's if we can't drive them home. I'd recommend breaking up your budget into a few buckets: implementation, customization, annual, and support.

Implementation is the process of standing up your shiny new community. A lot of times the vendor will have special packages, tips and tricks, or offerings to help you get where you need to go. This is especially helpful if you're thinking about migrating content.

Customization is exactly what it sounds like - adding your custom touch on the platform. If you're platform savvy, you might be able to save a little budget by doing the work yourself - but don't be shy to ask around and see what options you have.

Most platforms will have an annual usage fee that is either tied to views, members, licenses, etc. You don't know what you don't know, so ask other community managers for advice on what to target.

And support. Even if you're the most platform savvy community manager to ever live, you're still going to find yourself stumped or swatting at bugs every once in awhile. Grab yourself some support and use it!

Next, think about the hosting location. What I mean by this is where your community actually lives and how that location impacts your users, security, processes, etc. The big choices here are:

• Self-Hosted - Your community lives on a server within your own organization. This is especially helpful if your organization has high security requirements and a need for all data to live in house. Pros: Total control. Often lower cost. Cons: Way more maintenance and upkeep. Can have negative impact on performance if users are geographically spread out or have network issues.
• SaaS/Cloud - Your community lives on a server in a data farm somewhere like AWS. This doesn't mean your data isn't secure at all, but you are subject to the rules and guidelines of the provider. Pros: Way less maintenance and upkeep! Better distributed performance. Cons: Possibly less control over your data. Usually more expensive.
• Social Media - Your community lives on an established social media platform such as Facebook, Reddit, etc. Pros: Easy setup and maintenance. Usually free or very low cost. Cons: Less functionality and usually far less support. Limited opportunities for customization.

And finally, functionality. I always start out my community projects by making a rather giant list of all the things my community must do, want it to do, would be nice if it did, and not really that important. And then I use this to compare platforms. You might hear this referred to as a RFI (request for information) or RFP (request for proposal). Feel free to throw it to your possible vendor and ask them to respond to each.

Some categories of things to include: analytics, architecture, customization, development, moderation, search functionality, account management, and user interface. Some questions I include are:

• Are platform metrics available? Are historical metrics available? If yes, for how long?
• Can this platform support hierarchical architecture elements such as sub-communities, groups, boards, topics, etc.?
• What tools are available to deal with abuse by a member such as temporary or permanent bans?
• Is the platform SEO friendly? Is community content optimized for search engines?

Stranger, I can see your brain is starting to melt from information overload. I know how you feel, so let's wrap this up for this week. But if you think of anything you want to know, let me know!