Social Community Websites

We all are fully aware of the impact of social media in our life; it is cardinal. It is a prominent way of socializing for us humans. Not only that, Social Community Websites are a superior way for any product or service to get noticed. Any person who successfully wants to market a product or service will choose social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and many others.

Social Community Websites

Nowadays, people are melding membership functionalities, social media features like activities, group chats and discussions, friend lists, and much more into their social community websites. The nature of the website does not matter; whether it is an e-commerce platform, a professional’s page, or an eLearning website, you can start a micro social media or community interface within the website.

This will not only help the platform grow but provide necessary satisfaction to the users also. Now, you must be thinking that building a website and managing it is challenging itself, integrating it with a social media platform, though the idea may be nice but hard to implement. If you are thinking so, don’t worry, we are here for you.

You can do all this without working hard or hiring expensive agencies to build it for you. You can easily do this by using the world’s most extensive Content Management System (CMS) WordPress, which is free to use. Many big names like Microsoft, TechCrunch, Facebook, and many others are using its services. The fact is that more than 40% of the internet runs on WordPress and is continuously growing.

Why should you choose WordPress as your website partner?

social community websites
Social Community Websites

WordPress is free to use itself, but several costs are related to creating a full-fledged, UI-friendly, responsive, and SEO-optimized website. These costs are:

  • Hosting Service
  • Plugins and their add-ons (free and premium)
  • WordPress themes (free and premium)

How WordPress provides the best solution for social community websites?

WordPress is an open-source platform, and the benefit is that you can edit it any way you want. You just need the right tools for it. Developing a social community websites using WordPress is generally divided into two parts:

  • Installing required plugins and add-ons.
  • Installing a plugin-supported theme.

What Plugins and add-ons do?

Plugins are software that contains a function or a set of functions you add to your WordPress website to add new features or extend the usability of present functions.

What themes do?

A WordPress theme helps in the customization of your website. The website design, layout, color schemes, typography, and much more are managed by the WordPress theme.

After giving a brief introduction to the basics, let us move to the topic at hand: How will WordPress help create and manage a social community websites?

The BuddyPress plugin

For integrating social media functionalities, we will use the BuddyPress plugin. Though there are several alternatives, such as PeepSo and WP Symposium Pro, the BuddyPress is the best plugin I can think of.

The reason being, the BuddyPress plugin is free to use and has all the features you need to build a social community websites like Facebook.

1. BuddyPress features

 

  • User Profile

Easy profile creation and update, including profile pictures or avatars as per the parameters set by the admin.

  • Friend list

Send and accept friend requests to other users using the platform.

  • Groups

Create and manage groups easily. Not only that, you can create groups within groups.

  • Chats

Chat with other members, send private messages, or group chat.

  • Activity stream

Get your friends to know about the latest developments using the activity stream.

  • Forums

With the full integration of bbPress, create and manage forums or multiple forums for discussion on various topics.

These are some basic features of BuddyPress. To know more, click here.

2. BuddyPress add-ons

BuddyPress plugin is an open-source WordPress plugin and has many loose ends to be knit by WordPress developers. There are many functionalities that you will need for creating a perfect social media platform. For that, BuddyPress add-ons come in handy. We develop these add-ons that will provide you with anything you need for your community platform. Here is the list of few must-have add-ons:

3. Free BuddyPress Addons

free buddypress addons
Social Community Websites

For more free add-ons, click here!

4. Premium BuddyPress Addons

premium buddypress addons
Social Community Websites

For more premium add-ons, click here!

BuddyPress Community Bundle: Save upto 50%

Now, if you need an add-on for a specific purpose: contact us. We will be glad to help you out.

Now, let us say something more about using WordPress themes. We must choose a theme that supports the plugins we are integrating, or the UI will become a total mess. For social media platforms or community creation, the best theme to choose will be the one that supports BuddyPress and enhances its functionalities with quick and easy integrations of various other plugins and add-ons.

The BuddyX theme

buddyx theme
Social Community Websites

One such theme is BuddyX. It is one of the fastest WordPress themes for the BuddyPress platform, with awesome layouts, designs, typography, and functionalities.

Using the BuddyX theme means you can create your own Facebook within minutes. Not only that, you can use this BuddyPress theme for creating multiple platforms like multivendor e-commerce websites like amazon, eLearning platforms like edx, job portals like LinkedIn, and much more.

The primary benefit will be to integrate and start a micro-community into any of these websites, which will help you grow tremendously. The buddy theme is free to use WordPress theme, which also comes with a paid pro version.

1. BuddyX Pro pricing

  • $59/year $199 for a single website
  • $129/year or $299 for five websites
  • $399 for unlimited websites

Here is how your social media will look using BuddyX Pro.

2. BuddyX features

  • One-click demo installation

Give your website a jump start just by importing and installing the demo. The website will be ready in a few clicks here and there.

  • Easy eLearning website launch

With the support of top LMS plugins like LearnDash, LearnPress, and many more, it is more than easy to set up a top-notch eLearning website with ecommerce and membership facilities.

BuddyX with LearnDash LMS demo

  • E-commerce functionalities with multivendor support

Easily integrate WooCommerce and multivendor plugins like Dokan, WC vendors to create an e-commerce website like Amazon or eBay.

BuddyX with Dokan multivendor plugin demo

  • Gamification with GamiPress

Give online rewards, badges, create leadership boards, and indulge some fun in your social media community website by integrating the top WordPress gamification plugin GamiPress.

  • Forum integration with bbPress

Create and manage multiple public or private forums with many more forum functionalities to integrate the WordPress forum plugin bbPress.

  • Easy customization

With Advance Theme Customizer and Elementor support, create what you want. Indulge your creativity and make a difference easily.

  • Lightweight and responsive

buddy is a lightweight and responsive theme, which adjusts itself automatically as per the screen size.

  • A long list of supported plugins

buddy theme supports many third-party plugins like WooCommerce, LearnDash, LearnPress, SenseiLMS, GamiPress, Yoast, and much more. This makes BuddyX flexible to use and provides many extended functionalities to your website.

  • RTL ready

The BuddyX theme also works best with languages like Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian. You just have to switch the stylesheet to RTL.

Now, in any case, you don’t want to use BuddyPress for your community website; you can also find an alternative plugin. There are many alternative plugins, but the best alternative to BuddyPress is the PeepSo plugin.

PeepSo Plugin

PeepSo is a WordPress community plugin like Buddypress and provides the same features you get from using the BuddyPress plugin. The major drawback is that it is a premium plugin, which means you have to pay to use this plugin.

1. PeepSo Pricing

  • Basic Bundle: $99-$699
  • Starter Bundle: $199-$799
  • Ultimate Bundle: $299-$899

All are billed annually.

The best-suited theme for the PeepSo plugin

Reign PeepSo theme
Social Community Websites

The Reign PeepSo theme is the best theme available on WordPress for properly integrating and using the PeepSo plugin. You will find all the necessary features and more using this PeepSo plugin.

2. PeepSo features

  • Ecommerce Integration
  • LMS plugin integration for eLearning platforms
  • One-click demo installer
  • Theme skin and typography options
  • Visual website builder
  • Third-party plugin integration

And much more

Click here to see a demo!

You can use many add-ons with PeepSo like:

Click here for more add-ons

StoreMate Dokan

Conclusion

The WordPress platform is flexible and has many plugins and themes that will help you and support you to build a social media or community platform which are easy to manage. So, it is time to create something big, achieve something big with the support of your community.


Interesting Read:

Best WordPress Themes For Handmade Crafts

Get Your Social Community Website Through WordPress

Best Free WordPress Social Network Themes

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