Some communities do not need everyone talking. A coach shares the week’s plan. A shop owner posts what has just arrived. A local group’s organiser tells members where the next meeting is. The audience mostly wants to read, to tap a reaction, and now and then to vote on something. They do not want a busy feed to dig through, and the organiser does not want to moderate a hundred replies to say “thanks”.
This post covers how to run that kind of community on your own WordPress site with BuddyNext: the owner posts, members react or vote, and people join by invite link or by scanning a QR code. We make BuddyNext, so weigh what follows accordingly. We have checked each mechanic against the released code and noted where something is not there, including the QR code.
What an announcement-only community is, and when it fits
It is a community with one voice and many listeners. The organiser decides what goes out. Members respond in small ways: a reaction, a vote, sometimes a short comment. The value is in the reliable channel and in the member list behind it.
It fits when:
- The content is the organiser’s. Updates, schedules, recommendations, offers or news that members come for.
- Discussion would be noise. A busy comment section does not help someone checking whether the class is still on.
- Reach matters more than conversation. You want to know that everyone saw the message.
- You want to own the list. A channel on someone else’s platform can be limited or closed. A member list on your own site stays yours.
It does not fit when the main value is members talking to each other. A peer support group, a mastermind or a hobby forum needs the opposite setup. If that is you, our guide to starting a book club community shows a design where members post freely.
The pieces, and what each one does
Here are the mechanics, one at a time, with where each one comes from.
Announcements
An announcement is a post that pins to the top of every member’s home feed until each member dismisses it. It shows even for members who do not follow the author. Because it ignores the follow graph, it is the one message you can count on reaching the whole community.
You create one by starting a post in the composer and choosing the megaphone button. You can set an optional expiry date and time, so a notice about Saturday’s event retires itself on Sunday. Members are also notified in the background when you publish.
A few details worth knowing:
- One is pinned at a time. By default the newest live announcement leads the feed. You can feature a specific one from the admin Announcements screen, and you can end one early, which leaves the post in the feed as an ordinary post.
- Dismissal is per member. One person clearing it does not clear it for anyone else.
- Who can announce. Site administrators and community Admins can post site-wide announcements by default. You can move that to Moderators in the Roles and Capabilities screen. A space owner or space moderator can announce within their own space. Ordinary members cannot create announcements.
- The feature has a switch. Announcements are on by default and can be turned off under Platform, Features.
Announcements are part of the free core.
Owner-only posting in a space
Spaces are the rooms of your community, and each one has a setting called Who can post. It has three choices: all members, moderators and owner, or owner only. This is the setting that turns a space into a channel.
It is enforced when a post is saved, not just hidden in the interface. A member who is below the required role and tries to post anyway, including through the API, is refused. Site administrators can always post.
Posting is also separate from the other member actions. In the space’s own words, members still read, react and comment while only the team posts. That is exactly the shape of a broadcast channel with a light touch of interaction.
You can go further across the whole site. The Roles and Capabilities screen lets you set the minimum role for each action, including creating posts. Moving “create posts” up to Moderators or Admins stops members from posting to the main feed too, so the site as a whole reads as a one-way channel. Reacting, sharing and voting have their own permission, so you can leave those open while posting is closed. We would leave comments on at first, and close them only if the replies become a burden.
This is also part of the free core.
Reactions
Members react to a post with one of six emoji: like, love, haha, wow, sad and angry. A member holds one reaction per post, can swap it or remove it, and the count is public. The post’s author gets a bell notification once per person per post, however many times the person changes their mind.
You control the palette. Under Engagement, Social you can choose which of the six members may use. For an announcement channel, trimming the set to something like like and love keeps the tone calm. Pro adds custom reactions if you want your own.
Reactions are the lightest signal a member can give, and in a broadcast community they do real work. They tell you who saw the message and how it landed, without anyone having to write a sentence.
Polls
A poll is a post type. You write the question, add two to five options, and optionally set a closing time. Each member gets one vote, which they can switch or remove, and the results update live with percentages and a total.
Polls are how you turn a one-way channel into a two-way one without opening the floor. Ask which day suits for the next session. Ask which of three products to stock. Ask whether the monthly newsletter should come on a Monday or a Friday. Every member can answer with a tap, and you get a real count.
A poll is a normal feed post, so in an owner-only space you are the one who posts it, and members vote. Polls are on by default and part of the free core.
Comments
Members can comment on posts unless you restrict that. You may want to keep comments open on a few posts to invite replies, and rely on reactions and polls for the rest. If you find yourself deleting a lot of replies, that is a sign the community wants to be a conversation, and a different space setup may suit it better.
Moderation, even when only you post
A broadcast community still needs moderation, though less of it. Members can report comments. A report goes to a queue that you or a moderator work through, and you can warn, suspend or ban a member. Pro adds auto-moderation rules and bulk actions if your community grows large.
Joining: invite link, QR code and the other doors
A broadcast community lives or dies on whether people can get in with no friction. There are three ways in that work well together.
The space invite link
Every space can have one shareable invite link. You make it in the space settings, on the Invite link tab. You pick when it expires (one day, seven days, thirty days or never) and how many people it admits (one, ten, a hundred or unlimited). Then you copy it and paste it anywhere.
What the person sees depends on where they are:
- Signed in: they see the space, with its name, description and rules, and a Join button. Joining is immediate, with no approval step, even on a private space.
- Signed out: the same page asks them to log in or sign up. After they do, they come straight back to the space and join.
- Already a member: the link just opens the space.
- Banned from the space: the link never lets them back in.
- Link expired or used up: they are told it is no longer valid and to ask you for a new one.
You stay in control. The tab shows when the link expires and how many times it has been used. Reset link turns the old link off and issues a new one with the same settings, which is the answer when a link has been shared more widely than you meant. Turn off link stops it without issuing a new one. Members who came in by the link are marked “Joined via invite link” on the Members tab, visible to you and your moderators.
Two rules are worth remembering. A link is a shortcut into a space, not around your site’s rules, so a new account still completes sign-up and email verification, and a paid space still needs its plan. And only owners and moderators can create or reset the link.
Site-wide invitations
Separate from space links, you can run the whole site on Invite Only registration, where a valid invitation is required to sign up. Under Members, Directory, Invites you can send an invitation by email, or upload a CSV of up to 500 addresses at once. Each invitation is a personal link tied to that email address and expires after seven days by default, and you can resend or revoke it.
This is the right choice when you know exactly who should be in: a client list, last year’s cohort, a mailing list you want to bring across. The trade-off is that the link is personal. It cannot be pasted on a poster.
A QR code
Here is the honest answer on QR codes: BuddyNext does not generate them for invite links. The only QR code in the product is the one used to set up two-factor authentication. There is no built-in QR for a space invite.
But a space invite link is an ordinary web address. That means you can make a QR code from it with any QR code tool, and the code will open the same link. Share it the way you would share any image: on a printed flyer, a shop counter, a class slide or a social post.
A few practical points if you do this:
- Pick a link that does not expire if you are printing it. A flyer with a dead code is worse than no flyer. Set the expiry to never, and the uses to unlimited unless you need a cap.
- Test the code on a phone before you print. Scan it, sign up as a new person, and make sure you land in the space.
- Know that a link on paper can travel. If it ends up somewhere you did not intend, reset the link. The printed code then stops working, so you would reprint. For a community where that is a real risk, send personal invitations instead of using a printed code.
- A QR code makes no difference to what the person experiences. They scan, they land on the same page, and they sign in or sign up.
Ask-to-join
For a private space you can require approval to join. Then people who find the community ask, and you decide. This works alongside invite links: a link admits people directly, so use it for the people you have chosen, and use the approval route for anyone who finds you on their own.
Putting it together: a worked setup
Here is a plan that takes an afternoon. The names are placeholders.
- Install BuddyNext and run the setup wizard. Name the community.
- Create one main space, called something like “Updates”. Make it private if you want to control entry, or public if you want search engines to see your posts.
- Set Who can post to Owner only for that space.
- Trim the reactions to the two or three that fit your tone.
- Write the welcome announcement. Say what members will get, how often, and how to vote or react. Pin it.
- Make the invite link and test it in a private browser window as a stranger would.
- Add the link to the places your audience already visits: your email signature, your website, your social profiles. Turn it into a QR code with any tool for anything printed.
- Post your first poll a few days in. Pick a question people will enjoy answering, so that members learn that a tap is all it takes.
- Check who came in. The Members tab shows who joined via the link, and the admin Insights screen shows member and post counts and growth.
From then on, the routine is small. Post an announcement when there is news. Post a poll when you need a decision. End announcements when they have done their job.
Reaching people outside the site
A pinned announcement reaches members who open the community. Some members will not open it for weeks. For those, you need a message that goes to them.
The free core installs as a web app on a phone and sends in-app notifications and email notifications according to each member’s preferences. BuddyNext Pro adds more ways out: broadcast email, which you can send to a segment of members; drip sequences for a welcome series; and push notifications, which need a Firebase project. Pro also adds scheduled posts, so you can write a month of announcements in one sitting and let them go out on the right days.
If your whole business depends on every member getting every message, plan on email as well as the feed. A feed is a place people visit. Email arrives whether they visit or not.
Where another tool does the job better
A broadcast community built on your own site has a cost: it is yours to run, and members have to create an account. Be honest with yourself about that.
- Everyone is already on a messaging app. A messaging group asks nothing of anyone and arrives on the phone. If your audience is a handful of people who will never create an account, a group chat or a broadcast list may serve you better. If the group is something you earn from, the risk is that it sits in an account you do not control. Our page on what to do if WhatsApp limits or bans your group goes through that.
- You want live chat. A chat server suits constant, fast conversation more than a feed does. See our comparison with Discord.
- Your members live on Facebook. If they will not leave it, a group there reaches them where they are. See Facebook Groups.
- You only need a newsletter. If members never need to vote, react or see an archive, an email list is simpler.
Many organisers use two: a messaging group for quick chat and the site for announcements, polls and everything that needs to last.
Turning it into a paid channel later
If the channel earns its keep, you can charge for it. BuddyNext Pro adds paid membership plans, billed through your own Stripe or PayPal account, with no cut taken by BuddyNext. A plan opens one or more spaces, so a paid announcement channel is a space that only members on the plan can join. You can leave a free space open to everyone as the shop window.
BuddyNext gates community access, not individual posts or files. If you need to paywall a blog post or a download, use a content protection plugin such as MemberPress or Paid Memberships Pro alongside it. Our post on how to start a paid membership community covers where to draw the line between free and paid, and the pricing page has the current plans, including lifetime prices.
A short checklist
- Announcements are on, and you know who is allowed to post them.
- The space is set to Owner only, or Moderators and owner.
- Reactions are trimmed to your tone.
- One welcome announcement is pinned.
- The invite link is created, tested and, if printed, set not to expire.
- Any QR code was made with a separate tool and tested on a phone.
- A first poll is ready to go out.
- You have a plan for reaching members who do not open the site.
Want to try the setup before you commit? Open a live demo, or compare the plans on Free vs Pro.