Public vs. private social media:

Public social media platforms

Public social media excel at reaching a wide audience and fostering casual, broad-spectrum interactions. They enable members to like, comment, share, and send direct messages, but beyond this, engagement tools are limited.

And we cannot talk about public social media without mentioning its infamous algorithms!

Facebook algorithms, in particular, are criticized for prioritizing content that maximizes user engagement and ad revenue, often at the expense of fostering meaningful connections and diverse viewpoints.

These algorithms (and ads) lead to an impersonal member experience, where people may feel their interactions are driven by monetization objectives rather than their own genuine interests and goals.

Private social media platforms

Private communities focus on deeper, more meaningful engagement tailored to specific goals and interests.

The best private social media platforms provide advanced features designed to strengthen engagement and enhance member experience, including:

• Customizable user profiles for members to personalize their presence, showcase their interests, and skills. This leads to deeper connections and more meaningful interactions.
• Content sharing and collaborative workspaces to encourage members to actively contribute and engage with shared materials.
• Discussion forums and subcommunities for focused conversations on specific topics to maintain ongoing engagement around shared interests.
• Event management capabilities to boost member participation on and offline.
• Surveys to gather feedback and opinions from members, making them feel heard and involved in the decision-making process.
• Resource libraries to enhance the value of the community.
• Member onboarding and training to help new members integrate quickly and become active participants in the community.
• Integrated CRM and member management to help manage member information and track interactions, improving personalized engagement and fostering stronger relationships within the community.
• Job boards and career opportunities add even more value to the community experience.

These features facilitate more structured and meaningful interactions, making it easier for members to stay motivated toward their collective objectives.

A quick note on branding

Social media platforms offer little room for branding. You can add a couple of images and your logo, but other than that, your space will look like any other organization’s.

With a private community platform, you can align every part of your community to your visual brand and values to enhance your brand identity. You can even offer a branded mobile app!

Public social media platforms

One of the significant drawbacks of public social media platforms is the limited control users have over their data.

These platforms retain ownership of user-generated content and data, which they can use for advertising and other purposes. Privacy concerns and the risk of data being sold to third parties are persistent issues, leading to potential mistrust among community members.

Plus, if you don’t have ownership of the platform, you will always be dependent on the platform owner and have to play by their rules.

Regarding privacy settings, users have some control over who can see their posts and personal information, but settings can be complex and subject to changes by the platform. Content is often defaulted to public visibility, encouraging broad sharing and engagement but potentially compromising privacy.

Private social media platforms

With a private community, you own all the data. You can guarantee you have your members’ permission to collect their data. You can be transparent and clear about why you need it and what you do with it. This enhances trust and ensures that sensitive information is safeguarded, aligning with your community’s goals and ethical standards.

You can harness this data to enhance strategic decision-making, personalize member experiences, and more!

With regards to privacy, with most private social media platforms, members have more granular control over who can view their profile, posts, and personal information. Private communities also often require approval or invitation to join, ensuring a more secure and exclusive environment.

How Hivebrite protects data

Hivebite holds an impressive list of security-related certifications, including ISO 27001, Texas Risk and Authorization Management Program (TX-RAMP) Level 1 certification, and PCI-DSS v4.0. demonstrating its commitment to the highest security standards for all customer data it handles.

Public social media platforms

While public platforms provide some basic analytics, they often lack the depth and specificity needed for effective community management.

The data available typically focuses on surface-level metrics like follower counts and post engagements, which may not provide meaningful insights into the community’s health and progress towards goals.

Private social media platforms

Private community platforms give detailed analytics on member-specific activity, as well as metrics on events, membership, and revenue.

Reports can be completely customized to organization requirements. Community managers can also integrate the CRM with the community platform to consolidate all member data into a single centralized location. This unified view enables community managers to have a comprehensive understanding of member interactions, preferences, and engagement history within the community. By having all data in one place, organizations can improve decision-making, personalize member experiences more effectively, and streamline operations across the entire organization! Discover more about Hivebrite’s analytics module here.

Public social media platforms

Customization options on Facebook are minimal, with standardized group features that offer limited flexibility to tailor the community space to the unique needs and goals of its members.

For community administrators, the level of control and access they have over their community is a significant factor in effective management. On Facebook, admins are granted basic moderation tools that allow for content management and member oversight, but these tools are relatively limited.

Admins must operate within the confines of Facebook’s policies and rules, which are subject to change at any time. This dependency can pose a risk to community stability, as sudden policy shifts by Facebook can disrupt community operations and strategies.

Private social media platforms

Private social media platforms excel in creating focused, goal-oriented environments. With a private platform, you can create a community layout and structure that aligns with the specific needs and goals of your community, facilitating better navigation and user experience. You can turn off and on features as your community evolves and create subcommunities that cater to specific interests or projects.

These platforms provide community managers with comprehensive tools to manage and moderate their communities effectively. Community managers can manage access, permissions, and roles within the group. They can assign different roles, such as moderators or members, each with varying levels of privileges like content creation or moderation. This structure ensures controlled and secure interactions within the community.

While private online communities do share some similarities with social media platforms such as connecting people online, there are extensive differences regarding experience, strategy, and behavior.

These differences make private online communities far more effective for creating successful communities with focused and authentic engagement.

That said if your community is already on a public social media platform, migrating it to a private social media platform can be a daunting task. We’ve put together these best practices to help simplify the process!

Define your migration strategy

The first thing you need to do is outline the migration process step by step.

Here are some steps to consider:

• What is the deadline for the migration?
• What existing resources and content will you bring over from your previous platform?
• When and how will you communicate the move to your members?
• How will you support members before, during, and after the migration?
• How will you organize the beta testing of the new platform?
• How will members join the new platform?

You need to decide who in your team is responsible for each step and the timeline for each step.

If possible, involve your new vendor to help you plan the migration.

Involve your community

Involve your community in the process as much as possible.

Start by clearly communicating why a platform change is so necessary and all the wonderful benefits the new platform will bring the community.

Survey your members to discover what content and features they enjoy in the current community and what they would like to see in the new community! Member feedback will drive success on the new platform and strengthen your relationship with members by demonstrating that their needs and opinions are central to your community!

Once you’ve locked in the date, make an official announcement detailing the date the new platform will be live. Be sure to repeat the benefits and clearly explain what members have to do to join the new platform.

Leverage your community champions

Get your most engaged members’ buy-in early on. Ask them to beta-test the new community platform and share feedback!

This influential group will help you bring other community members on board by generating hype and convincing them of the benefits of the new platform.

Give members a reason to move

People tend to be ok with change if they understand the reason for it and see value.

When communicating the move to your members, you need to showcase the new community platform’s value!

What will everyone benefit from? What will members do on the new platform that they couldn’t do on the previous? Will members be able to participate more? Will there be new types of content and events? Shout the benefits loud and clear!

Create an inspiring landing page

How will members join the new platform? Do you have an existing mailing list? Or are you going to ask members to go directly to the new platform and sign up from scratch?

The first thing members will see when they sign up for your new community is your landing page, so make sure it is impressive!

You want members to land on this page and be inspired to sign up immediately (not put it off until later!).

Also, before opening the (virtual) doors to your new community platform, be sure to populate it with quality content! You can also reach out to the community champions and ask them to generate conversations!

Get tips on how to create a content strategy for your community.

Create an awesome onboarding process

You want your members to get to grips with the new platform as quickly as possible. When structuring and designing your new community platform, you need to keep your user’s journey top of mind—what parts of the platform will your members be visiting first?

In addition to this, put together an outstanding community onboarding process. A great onboarding will excite members, inspire them to take an active role in your community and reinforce your relationship with them.

Share quality resources with them, organize welcome webinars, explain how exciting new features will benefit them, suggest groups they should join, and tag them in important discussions in the forum.

Get content inspiration from our 2024 community content calendar template!

Don’t forget your old space

Continue to monitor your previous community for any newcomers who might have stumbled upon the wrong channel (or even members who have been offline and missed the newsflash).

Of course, you should direct everyone to the new community. However, you could also keep your previous community open as the freemium version of your community if you charge membership on your new platform.

You could offer members using the freemium version the possibility to comment on daily threads organized by moderators to get a taste of the community. However, make it clear that if they want to post, attend events, and access content, they must join the private community.

Set realistic expectations

Switching community platforms is a change and will be met with some grumbling and resistance.

Being there for your community members throughout the transition is crucial. You need someone on hand to answer any member questions or concerns along the journey.

Set realistic expectations with your team and key stakeholders and let them know that registered members will dip. However, you will be left with your most engaged members who are most aligned with your community’s mission!