How to create Membership/Community site in WordPress

Posted on September 15th, 2021

BuddyPress is the popular WordPress Forum plugin. It allows you to create and manage your small online community. In this community, users can make profiles using avatars, join groups, and send private messages as well. BuddyPress is also a completely free and open-source plugin for creating online communities and forums. However, both plugins were made by the same development groups. BuddyPress interface is easy to use and simple. You can launch on your website without any hassle.

Buddypress allows you to make a community website for colleges with member profiles, user groups, activity streams, messaging, etc. If you use BuddyPress, you need to install BuddyPress theme plugins for a better result like Buddyboss wall, user blog, and many more. It will help you to create a popular brand and make good revenue. The site tracking feature allows you to track the posts and comments in the activity streams.

You can enable the option from BuddyPress settings. Moreover, it also allows your users to add their own blogs using WordPress multisite feature. You will be able to keep your users updated with their profiles by turning on the notifications via emails as well. Thus, they can easily be aware of relevant activities. You can also give your users full control over the profile and notification settings. Moreover, settings are fully integrated with your themes, and it can be disabled by the admin anytime. If your WordPress installation has multisite enabled, BuddyPress will support the global tracking of blogs, posts, comments, and custom post types with a little bit of custom code. You can also enable multi-blog mode to display your BuddyPress content on any site in your WordPress Multi-site network.

BuddyPress allows you to build your own social network within WordPress. It follows the same coding practices and standards as WordPress. You can create a full-fledged online community with user profiles, activity streams, user groups, messaging, and other options using BuddyPress. And Same as Facebook, it allows your users to add friends, send private messages, create groups, and get notifications. Best of all, you can use BuddyPress and bb-Press together and create a feature-rich online forum. You can try bb-Press for discussion forums. bb-Press integrates with BuddyPress Groups, Profiles, and Notifications. Each group on your site can choose to have its own forum. Moreover, each user’s topics, replies, favorites will appear in their profiles. So, now let’s discuss the basic features of this plugin,

Features

  • Users can create and update profiles and send a request to other friends.
  • You can allow users to send private messages and follow a particular activity stream.
  • Users can participate in forum discussions if you integrate the plugin with other third-party plugins.
  • It easily integrates with any WordPress theme and plugin.
  • You will get multiple third-party BuddyPress plugins and extensions. It will extend the functionality to create the forums.
  • The plugin lets you easily create a complete social network. you will have activity streams, user profiles, social connections, groups, etc.
  • It’s a free and open-source plugin. Download BuddyPress for free and use it on unlimited sites, and also get regular updates.
  • The plugin has less advanced features that you may need to build a full-fledged online community. You can extend the community and forums. But you’ll need to install third-party plugins.
  • BuddyPress also has built-in support for Akismet and bbPress, two very popular and powerful WordPress plugins.
  • Site tracking allows you to track the posts and comments in the activity streams. Moreover, it also allows your users to add their own blogs using WordPress multi-site feature.
  • You can also keep your users updated with their profiles by turning on the notifications. Thus, they can easily be aware of relevant activities.
  • You can also give your users full control over the profile and notification settings. Moreover, settings are fully integrated with your themes. They can be disabled by the admin anytime.
  • If your WordPress installation has multi-site enabled, BuddyPress will support the global tracking of blogs, posts, comments. You can even edit custom post types with a little bit of custom code.
  • You can also enable multi-blog mode to allow your BuddyPress content to be displayed on any site in your WordPress Multi-site network.

Pricing Details

BuddyPress is a free WordPress Forum Plugin. You don’t have to pay for anything. Also, you will have many features within your WordPress dashboard. You can easily start community and group forums using this plugin. However, if you want to create a forum within the small communities, you need to use other third-party plugins with BuddyPress.

How to Install and Activate BuddyPress Plugin

The installation process is very easy. You can just follow the simple steps mentioned below to install and activate the plugin.

Step 1: First, you need to log in to the WordPress admin dashboard.

Step 2: Now, you will see the option “Plugins” on the left-hand side panel. Click on “Plugins,” then select “Add New.”

Step 3: You will see a search bar on the top right-hand side corner. Search “BuddyPress Plugin”

Step 4: Now, you need to click on “Install Now.”

Step 5: After installation, you need to activate BuddyPress Plugin to use it on your site. Now, click on “Activate.”

Now you have successfully installed and activated the plugin. You can create forums and communities using this plugin on your site.

How to Use BuddyPress plugin

After activating the plugin on your site, you can start creating timers on your site. We have explained step by step guide below on how to use this plugin,

Step 1: First, you need to go to the “Settings” and then click on “BuddyPress”

Step 2: You will see four sections in the settings – Components, options, pages, and credit. So in the “Component” tab, Many of the components are enabled by default. But some components you need to enable if you require them like friend connections, private messaging, etc. You can enable these options as well,

  • Any user can register, create an account, edit or delete it – all from within their profile.
  • You can allow detailed profiles for users to describe themselves.
  • Users can connect with others within the community and follow them.
  • Users can make new friends in the community.
  • Any number of users can continue a conversation privately.
  • To create groups that users can join in and participate in.
  • To display the latest exchanges in an activity stream, with RSS feed and email notification support.
  • Users can send notifications about any activity, allowing users to customize the notification settings.

After selecting the options, click on “Save Settings.”

Step 3: The second tab is “Options“, you can enable or disable the options you want. After that, BuddyPress will use the assigned pages to display the relevant content for your site.

In this tab, you will see the main settings and member, profile, and activity settings. Main settings allow you to show the toolbar to logged-out users. You can enable the registered users to delete their accounts. Also, you will have two template packs – BuddyPress Legacy and BuddyPress Nouveau.

In the Member settings tab, you can also allow users to upload their profile pictures using their Avatar account. Users can also invite other people to register and join the network.

Step 4: In the profile and activity settings, you can allow users to sync their BuddyPress account to WordPress. Moreover, in the activity settings, you can allow users to comment on the posts.

You can enable group creation, group photo upload, and allow customizable cover images of groups in the group settings. You can allow users to create the groups and modify the cover and profile images of groups.

After enabling the options, click on “Save Settings.”

Step 5: The third tab is “Pages“, you will need to create two more pages – registration and activity. You can select pages for each section, like member list and activity. Then click on “Save Settings.”

However, this plugin only helps you to create small communities on your site. If you would like to create the forums within those communities, then you can install bbPress. Then after you can now have forum functionality within the communities, you can integrate both the plugins and allow users to create their forums from the bbPress settings.

Conclusion:

BuddyPress is the most popular forum plugin for WordPress. You can easily make a small social network using these plugins. Like Facebook, it allows users to create their profile using their Avatar account, activity streams, private messaging, and many more. If you want to create a forum within those groups or small communities, then you can install the bbPress plugin. You can run both the plugin to expand and let users communicate at the broad platform within your site. You can also allow users to integrate the BuddyPress accounts to WordPress.

We have explained the step-by-step guide on how to install and activate this plugin. You can also check our guide on how to set up the BuddyPress plugin. We hope this article will help you to create an online community within your site.

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