This listing of resources for online community managers contains affiliate links, which means we might make a small commission from any purchase you make at no extra cost to you.
If you’re running a group, you’re going to need help. Though hiring human help is nice, it’s not always necessary. There are essential tools and resources for online community managers that save so much time, it’ll feel like you’ve hired help – even if you’re a one-person show.
No matter the type, active management of your community is vital to fostering healthy engagement, a positive culture and connection among members. But you only have 24 hours in a given day.
From content scheduling and analytics to community-building strategies and beyond, these resources will empower you to create and maintain vibrant, successful online communities without devoting every minute of your day to life online.
While Facebook Live Producer lacks the polish of third-party streaming services that support branded frames and lower-thirds for your livestream, it works well within Facebook groups, doesn’t cost a dime, and doesn’t require much technical skill or training.
Video Resources for Community Managers
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but nothing compares to video when it comes to building meaningful relationships with people you have never met in real life.
Video helps to build deeper connections within communities because tone is hard to read via typed text. What is written with the intent of wry wit by one person can be perceived as judgmental, sarcastic and outright mean to another.
If you love video, you probably already have a favorite app or software program. For several years (2019 to 2024), I swore by StreamYard for live video streaming throughout social media. Since, their major price increase in 2024, that’s no longer the case.
Facebook’s decision to close its API for Groups in April 2024 reduced the value of third-party livestreaming apps for most community managers. Third-party apps are still the way to go for multi-streaming (livestreaming to multiple platforms at the same time) on public-facing properties (Facebook Page, YouTube Channel, LinkedIn Profile, etc.). But if livestreaming into your group is your top priority, the investment in a third-party application might not make sense.
Facebook Live Producer
Recommending Facebook Live Producer for livestreaming in Groups or elsewhere on Facebook is not something I thought I’d do again since the feature went wonky for me back in 2020. For two straight years, I couldn’t access the feature at all. But with the API closure, I had to learn to make it work – especially when testing consistency around going live every day.
The biggest benefits of Live Producer are that it’s free and easy to initiate from computer or mobile device.
Other benefits:
- You can pin a comment to the top of the comments feed under your video (great way to highlight a call to action)
- You can schedule your livestream in your group as an event
Issues I have with Live Producer:
- You can’t have an on-screen guest if you livestream from your computer. To livestream with a guest, you must initiate the livestream from your phone. Your guest must be watching the livestream from their photo to request to join the broadcast or for you to invite them to join the broadcast with you. Sound annoying? It is.
- You can’t toggle back and forth between direct-to-camera and screen share. If you want to share your screen for a tutorial, you must initiate that before the broadcast begins. This is the feature I miss the most with third-party apps.
- Even if you type out a title and description before you go live, you have to do it again when you initiate the broadcast — and the formatting doesn’t stick. You have to edit the post after the livestream ends to add spaces between paragraphs and any other formatting you want.
If you’re already paying for Zoom, explore its livestreaming options to see if they meet your needs. It’s fairly easy to connect Zoom to your Facebook Page, YouTube and Twitch channels. The “Custom Streaming Service” option will allow you to use RTMP to stream into a Facebook group.
Zoom
I don’t love using Zoom for livestreaming into Facebook groups, but if you want to stream from your computer, toggle back and forth between looking at the camera and sharing your screen, or having one or more people on camera with you, it’s a solid option.
I wouldn’t invest in a Zoom account strictly for livestreaming purposes but if you’re already paying to use it for meetings or webinars, learning to use it for livestreaming further maximizes your investment.
Going live to a Facebook Page, YouTube channel or Twitch account is as easy as connecting your accounts and clicking a button from within a meeting. But if you want to go live in your group, you’ll need to select the “Custom Streaming Service” feature, which uses RTMP to connect your Zoom meeting to a livestream within your group.
If production quality and audio/visual effects are important to you, check out OBS Studio. It’s free and if you’re willing to spend time learning how it works, it can do a lot for you.
Loom
The joke around here is that I speak fluent Loom, because I send so many videos using Loom. I’ll send direct-to-camera videos in response to emails I receive, and I record a lot of tutorials using Loom because the service is so easy to use. To date, I’ve recorded and shared almost 2,500 videos using Loom. Whether I’m offering feedback to a client, providing a tutorial or starting a conversation, Loom makes it easy to do from my phone and my computer.
Loom hosts your videos and tracks views while allowing viewers to leave comments as well. You can trim, edit and embellish your videos – all within the app. And, you can download your videos to upload to various platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.
In 2024, I tested Zoom Clips as a replacement for Loom to see if I could simplify my tech stack. While Zoom Clips was just as good at recording videos as Loom is, it falls short in additional features. What I have always appreciated about Loom is that I could also upload recordings to share with others. Zoom Clips lacks that capability. Zoom feels more like an internal recording tool, not one that’s meant for external audiences.
Email Marketing Services
Email marketing services allow you to send professional mass emails to your community members in compliance with anti-spam laws. Services like this are critical if you’re sending out newsletters, sales emails or are trying to build up an email list for business purposes.
But they are also a powerful way to connect with your online community members outside of your group, which is important if the community is hosted on social media. You never know when Facebook, LinkedIn or a similar platform will go down or be unavailable. I value having email access to my group members. In The Secret to Thriving Online Communities, we even have a specific email onboarding sequence that goes out to new members and establishes that direct line of communication.
Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
Kit has been around for AGES but has made significant advances in its level of service recently. I started using Kit in 2016 when I had only 45 email subscribers. I was frustrated by MailChimp and looking to make a switch. Even though they didn’t have a free plan at the time, Kit’s customer service and stability made them worth the investment. I’ve never looked back.
Nowadays, they have various tiers that work at just about any stage of business. The freemium plan is fully functional up to 300 subscribers. I’m seeing a lot of authors, podcasters and livestreamers go all-in on using Kit to connect with their audiences. It’s just as valuable for product-based business. They have great starter templates and a variety of features to allow you to customize your subscriber experience. They also have the Creator Network for collaborative list-building efforts. In 2024, 774 people subscribed to my email list through Creator Network referrals — making this the best passive list-building tactic I’ve ever tried.
What I’m especially excited about at the moment is the Kit App Store. Seamless integration with Canva, Giphy, Senja are streamlining my workflow. When you shop the App Store, make sure to look at “legacy integrations.” Community leaders will be thrilled to see integrations with Circle, Mighty, MemberPress and MembersPro.
Mailerlite
I don’t LOVE Mailerlite, but many of my clients do. Sadly, like a lot of email marketing services, they’ve dramatically reduced the value of their free account tier. So much so, I’m almost exclusively recommending Kit now. But if you prefer a simple interface and solid drag-and-drop builder (something Kit doesn’t do well), you should investigate Mailerlite.
I’ve used at least 100 social media schedulers over the years. Between my work as a social media manager for a major research university, an agency owner, solopreneur and fractional CMO, I have put every tool through its paces. I believe most schedulers do one thing best or work with one platform best and do everything else “meh” — so get clear on your priorities before committing to any paid plan.
As a people-first community manager, I have a different perspective on social media schedulers. I don’t use them so I can “fix and forget” my social media plan. I use them to publish content when my audience is most apt to see it, so that my time is freed up to develop meaningful relationships across social media. By scheduling my posts, I can spend more time responding to comments and commenting on other people’s posts.
Meta Business Suite
Since Facebook closed its Groups API in April 2024, most third-party apps won’t auto-publish posts into your Facebook group. That makes native scheduling of content within your group and Meta Business Suite as your top two options for scheduling community content.
Meta Business Suite has finally integrated all content creation and scheduling tools to provide a pretty good level of service for scheduling to Instagram and Facebook, and moderating your comments. Best part? It’s still free.
The cost of free in this case is basic functionality. Here is what you can do through Business Suite:
- Schedule posts to Facebook Pages, Groups, and Instagram accounts (including Reels, Stories and videos)
- Schedule Carousels to Instagram
- Customize the text of your post, so your caption on Facebook differs from your caption on Instagram when cross-posting
- Get recommendations for the best times to post on Facebook and Instagram according to when your followers are most active
- Add a link preview on Facebook
- Duplicate posts to streamline future content creation (or repurpose successful posts)
- Access analytics on post performance (even if you didn’t schedule the post through Business Suite)
What you can’t do:
- Schedule the first comment to publish with the post
- In-depth hashtag research
- Schedule content to platforms Meta doesn’t own
If your preferred social media platforms are owned by Meta, Business Suite might be all you need for scheduling your content at the moment.
For the price, Metricool integrates with a robust list of social media platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Threads, Twitter (X), Twitch, Bluesky, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google Business Profile.
Metricool
I switched from SmarterQueue to Metricool in Fall 2022 because I love the integrated dashboard that combines analytics from my website with all connected social media properties. I also find its scheduler to be more reliable, while still allowing for posts to be recycled on a loop.
I use the paid plan, which allows me to schedule to my LinkedIn profile. Unfortunately, analytics are only available for company pages on LinkedIn. I like that I can schedule both my post and the first comment on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. If you don’t have graphics or images of your own, you can access their image library to illustrate your posts. Recently they have added AI copywriting to help improve the quality of posts and direct integration with Canva and Google Drive to make accessing your own images even easier than before. In 2024, they added several platforms to the list of supported channels (e.g. TikTok, Threads, Bluesky, Pinterest).
Tailwind
If Pinterest is part of your marketing strategy, you need to take a close look at Tailwind. No service is better at executing an effective Pinterest strategy. I don’t care for how it manages scheduling to other platforms but if your brand is Pinterest-forward, it makes sense to fully embrace Tailwind as your social media scheduler.
Productivity Tools to Support Community Managers
As a service provider, I have a lot of experience with productivity tools. I’ve tried several personally and professionally. Whether they are tools my team and I use in our business, or tools our community management clients use in working with us, the choices are numerous.
I believe you are your most important system. The best productivity tool for you is the one that plays nicely with your brain. You may have to try a few to find the right fit for the work you do, but once you make a decision, the time saved is exponential.
News Feed Eradicator
If you find yourself distracted by the overwhelming amount of content on your social media timelines, News Feed Eradicator will be your best friend. This free Chrome Extension wipes your news feed clean, so you can focus on the task at hand. It works on every major social media platform, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, LinkedIn and more.
You can turn on the eradicator for a limited amount of time if you’re doing deep work on social media, or keep it on all the time to take control over your news feed.
GroupTrack CRM
My people-first approach to community management is made possible at scale thanks to GroupTrackCRM, which works on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to keep track of conversations, ensuring nobody falls through the cracks.
We use GroupTrack for our high-touch member onboarding experience in The Secret to Thriving Online Communities, and I also use it to keep track of people I connect with all over Facebook (friends, page followers, peers, etc.). The bulk messaging feature allows me to stay in touch with people via DMs without landing in Facebook jail. GroupTrack is a great tool for anyone who wants to tighten up their process for cultivating leads via social media.
Basecamp
Basecamp is a web-based project management and collaboration tool that our team uses to manage work and communicate with our clients and each other. It offers a variety of features that can increase productivity, including task management, communication (direct messaging, group chats and message boards), file sharing and scheduling. Customize Basecamp by integrating it with other parts of your tech stack, like Proposify, Toggle, Timeshift Messenger and HoneyBadger.
Having one service to manage internal and external communication and project management has saved hours for my team. We’ve been able to eliminate weekly meetings and can now successfully achieve our goals by working asynchronous to one another. The functionality of the mobile app is just as convenient as the web app, critical for anyone who conducts business on the go.
Asana
Asana is a web-based project management tool that is designed to help teams organize and manage their work. Though you can view tasks as a kanban board, Asana is great if you’re a list person. It creates to-do lists, assigning tasks to team members, setting due dates and tracking progress.
Asana has been around so long that it integrates with most popular tech tools online business owners and community managers rely on. Slack, Microsoft Teams, Vimeo and Google’s suite of services are just a few. If you’re going to use Asana for project management, I strongly encourage you to add on Slack for internal communication. Otherwise, you’ll end up buried in meetings or email when you need to brainstorm ideas.
Slack
Slack is a cloud-based team communication and collaboration tool that provides real-time messaging, file sharing, and group chat features. It is designed to improve team productivity and streamline communication. Slack makes work easier by including all members of your team in discussions, regardless of locations.
The best remote teams I’ve been on use Slack for internal communication. I’ve also used Slack as a community platform. Not everyone likes Slack’s user interface, but if you take the time to organize your workspace in a logical manner, teach your team to use it effectively and hold everyone accountable to using it as designed, you’ll quickly come to love it. Slack integrates seamlessly with Zoom, Google, Asana, GIPHY and Loom (along with hundreds of other software resources).
Liz Wilcox’s Email Marketing Membership makes it easy to connect with members of the online communities you manage.
Courses, Memberships, Products and Programs
Community management isn’t just a matter of running a Facebook Group or two. To have a thriving online community, you need a variety of other skills: building and nurturing your email list, graphic design, video production, and an understanding of search engine optimization (SEO), online learning and content management. You can hire service providers to do these things for you or enroll in programs that help you do them yourself.
This is not an exhaustive list of the programs I credit for helping me to get to where I am, but they are programs that solve what I think are some of the biggest problems facing community managers.
Liz Wilcox’s Email Marketing Membership (EMM)
If you’re using your community for lead generation, you need a way to connect with them outside of the group. Email is the best way to reach your members. Getting their email address is the first step but once you have email addresses for your members, what’s next? Ideally, you’ll start emailing them regularly so they get used to hearing from you in both places. But it can be hard thinking of what to say in those emails.
Enter the Email Marketing Membership (EMM) by *NSYNC-loving Liz Wilcox. For only $9 per month, Liz will send you an email template and video explanation of how to use it every week. Her membership portal has a variety of workshops on how to grow your email list and turn followers into friends and clients. The membership includes a private Facebook community for team and peer support.
The AI Content System by Viral Marketing Stars includes the Viral Content System® Strategy, 12 Monthly Content Collections with templates, captions & calls to actions, AI Notion workflow with all the templates + captions + call to actions pre-loaded, AI ChatGPT prompts & step-by-step customization for your niche, and a variety of additional bonuses.
AI Content System (Viral Marketing Stars)
Design is not my gift but hiring a designer for social media content isn’t practical. Professionally designed graphics average $14 apiece. At that rate, a package of 15 images would cost $210. That’s a steep price tag for social media posts with an average shelf life of a few hours.
So how do you get compelling graphics to slow the scroll on social media without breaking the bank? The AI Content System from Viral Marketing Stars is my recommended solution. The Viral Content Club, a Canva template subscription, is my solution. I first entered the Viral Marketing Stars ecosystem in 2016 when I was first learning livestreaming from founder Katya Varbanova. Since then, I’ve leaned on Katya’s digital products for a variety of reasons. I still rely on these Canva templates for everything from Facebook cover images and Instagram posts to YouTube thumbnails and infographics.
OnVideo
This video membership is helpful if TikTok, Reels or YouTube Shorts are part of your marketing strategy. OnVideo is Elise Darma’s membership focused on short-form video content.
Every week, you get five short-form video ideas and caption templates for TikTok, Reels, Shorts and Idea Pins. They are adapted to a variety of business models, whether you sell coaching, services or products. These video ideas are also great if you’re looking for quick videos to post in your community.
The Playhouse
The Playhouse is a collective of creative solopreneurs that launched in 2024 with a simple goal: to help members expand their network and visibility in fun, collaborative ways.
The Playhouse is built on the foundation that we’re all leaders and learners. Mentors in our unique zone of genius, whether it’s business skills like design, copywriting, marketing, or life skills like body liberation, breathwork, or learning how your birth chart can affect your capacity.
As a Playhouse mentor, I host ask-me-anything and tutorial sessions each month. I have also built strong collaborative relationships with other members of the Playhouse. Even in the short few months I’ve been part of The Playhouse, I’ve found both service providers and clients from within the community.
What I enjoy most about The Playhouse is while there are several events hosted each month, none are recorded. This prioritizes live participation and makes each event truly special. The Playhouse is hosted on Heartbeat and events are hosted using GoBrunch. It’s a different experience, for sure, but one that is well-suited for anyone seeking human-to-human connection in their online business efforts.
Attract & Activate
I’ve been working with Meg Casebolt and the Love at First Search team since 2020. I’m an Attract & Activate alumna and I hire the team each year for an SEO Roadmap.
Attract & Activate, delivered live twice each year, is the first course that made search engine optimization and keyword research make sense to me. Once I understood how SEO worked, I also understood what a beast it can be to do well. Hiring Meg’s team for my annual SEO Roadmap means the heavy lifting is done by professionals. The team does the keyword research for me based on my goals for the year, and provides me with a list of keywords to target and articles to write to support ranking for those keywords. If you found this article from an online search, you have the proof of the Love at First Search team’s success.
Additional Resources for Online Community Managers
Canva
Canva is a web-based graphic design platform that allows users to create a wide range of visual content, including social media graphics, presentations, posters, flyers, videos, and more. The interface is user-friendly and the template options are vast. Even with no design experience, you can create professional graphics quickly and efficiently.
Canva was one of my earliest business investments, and it gets better every year.
Google Workspace
Most community managers aren’t working deeply under the hood of the businesses they support, but sometimes our work with clients identifies deeper operational issues that need fixing so we can be most effective. Though it doesn’t happen often, I’ve worked with clients who have achieved significant business success without fully building out business systems. These clients, usually solopreneurs (maybe supported by a VA), are running their business through a personal email account and free cloud storage.
In these situations, I recommend Google Workspace’s Business Starter or Standard Plan. I use the Standard Plan because my work requires the 2TB pooled storage and the included Appointment Bookings Calendar and eSignature with Docs and PDFs have allowed me to cancel my Calendly and Adobe subscriptions. Google Workspace is a robust suite of tools that supports professional communications, scheduling, and data storage and management. And if you want to fully appreciate all that Google has to offer you and your business, I highly recommend Adrienne Farrow’s Go-To Community. Adrienne is my personal Google expert and the reason I’ve been able to streamline my tech stack.
MemberVault
When I launched my first online course in 2018, I looked everywhere for an easy, affordable learning management system. MemberVault caught my eye because it was the first to offer a marketplace dashboard that displayed free and paid offers side-by-side.
You can use it for coaching, consulting, courses, memberships, digital products, and even podcasts. I’ve tried other LMS platforms over the years but keep returning to MemberVault. Nothing compares to the value at this price.
Want Help Choosing Community Management Resources?
Team Kubo specializes in online community design, development and growth. Whether you need help with strategy, training your admin team or day-to-day management of your group, we can help. The first step is to complete our no-cost community health assessment, so we can identify your needs and customize a plan to get the results you desire.
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