Skool Alternative on WordPress: Own Your Community and Courses

Looking for a Skool alternative? This video shows the same four things people like about Skool, a community feed, a classroom, a calendar and a leaderboard, running on a WordPress site you own.

Transcript

Skool made one idea popular. Put the community, the courses, the calendar and the leaderboard in a single place. It is a good idea, and you do not have to give it up. The question is where your community lives. A hosted platform comes with a trade-off. You pay a fee every month, for as long as the community exists. Your members and your content live on someone else's site, not on yours. And you can only change what the platform lets you change. And the day you want to leave, moving a whole community is hard work. So here are the same four things, running on a WordPress site you own. Each one is a plugin you install on your own hosting. Start with the community, and add the others when you are ready for them. One. The community feed. Members post, vote in polls and reply, in groups you set up. You decide how many groups there are, who can join each one, and who helps you moderate it. Two. The classroom. Courses with video lessons, saved progress and a certificate at the end. Finish the lesson and the progress is saved. Finish the course, and the certificate shows on the member's profile for everyone to see. Three. The calendar. Events with registration, tickets, and a list of who is coming. The member gets a ticket, and you get a headcount before the day arrives. Four. The leaderboard. Points, levels and badges for the members who show up. Badges stay on the member's profile, so the people who help the most are easy to spot. And because it is your own site, you can add what a closed platform does not offer. A full forum, with answers people can search. Every answer stays on your own domain, where a search can send new people to it. A job board. A business directory. Whatever your community needs next. You set your own plans and prices, and the payments go to your account. And the member list is yours. You can export it any day you like. You can see how the community is growing, in numbers that stay on your own site. Side by side. A platform fee every month, or a free plugin on hosting you already pay for. Their address, or your own domain. Fixed features, or anything you choose to add. And the members on their list, or on yours. Every member you add to a rented platform makes it harder to leave. Start on your own site, and there is nothing to move later. BuddyNext is the free community plugin for WordPress. Build your community on the site you own, starting this week. Get BuddyNext. The link is below.