Let’s face it, Facebook Groups is the most easiest way to set up a community.
But as more and more privacy issues Facebook has, community builders and companies get more hesitant to use it.
By collecting user data, Facebook promote products to the right people; it’s an advertising business.
But the problem is that people don’t want to be tracked.
Although there is a broad range of online community platforms, finding the ideal replacement for Facebook Groups might be challenging.
How to Evaluate Alternatives to FB Groups?
When you’re trying to evaluate your options, try to answer these two questions:
- Can I use my own domain name and branding?
- Will group members love it?
Facebook Groups Alternative #1: Reddit
Reddit is a social network that allows anyone to create a community (“subreddit”).
Pros
- Free to use
- Simple UI
- Private and public communities
Cons
- You can’t use your own domain name and branding
- Cannot be embedded inside your website
Facebook Groups Alternative #2: WhatsApp
WhatsApp is a text and voice messaging app owned by Facebook.
Pros
- Free to use
- You can broadcast messages to all group members
- Private communities
Cons
- Owned by Facebook
- You can’t use your own domain name and branding
- Cannot be embedded inside your website
- Can be tricky to navigate through messages if you have a lot of group members
Facebook Groups Alternative #3: Slack
Slack is a popular workplace chat app.
Pros
- Private communities
- Desktop, web and mobile apps
Cons
- Cannot be embedded inside your website
- You can’t use your own domain name and branding
- It charges per active user, so it might get quite expensive
Facebook Groups Alternative #4: PeerBoard
We decided to take a different approach and created an embeddable discussion board that people love using. Instead of a traditional forum, PeerBoard makes it easy to stay up to date with a single Reddit-like feed. You can run PeerBoard on your own custom domain and get full access to all of your member info, contacts and stats without any restrictions.
Pros
- Private and public communities
- Embed into any website, including WordPress, Tilda and custom setups
- You can use your own domain name and branding
- Higher member engagement with daily email digests
Cons
- Lack of organic growth via Facebook
Final thoughts
If you want to fully own your data, give your users a safe place to communicate, and explore new ways to grow and build your community – a fully managed SaaS platform would be the right step.
PeerBoard community platform can be a nice alternative to Facebook Groups. You can build your community under your custom domain, and it can embedded into any website, including WordPress with our WordPress Forum Plugin.
