With Thinkific Learning Communities, you can now build and deliver a holistic communal learning experience, all on one platform. With our updated Community Builder, you will be able to price, package, bundle and sell your community, just like courses, giving you a whole new way to engage and monetize your audience!
In this article:
How to Create a Learning Community
Build Your Community Landing Page
About Learning Communities
Thinkific Communities represent major untapped potential for your business: build a community around your content to add even more value to your online courses, or create a community as a higher tiered offering—the power to build, develop, and monetize your community to create a cohesive and interactive experience for your students is in your hands!
How It Works
Each learning community is a dedicated space where your students can create new image, video, or text posts, view and comment on existing posts, join in live events, and interact with the rest of the Community. Create a personalized experience - name and brand your community with your own image or logo, and choose your own colors and font!
Once you're ready, choose the type of community you want to create and how you want to offer your community to the world!
- Create, configure, price and publish a community using our new Community Builder tool
- Sell communities as an independent product at checkout (with or without a course)
- Sell a community within a bundle or a membership (subscription)
- Sell a community as an order bump, or with coupons!
Important Considerations
- Communities that are available to students will be automatically displayed in their Student Dashboard. A community can also be accessed through a direct link to the community page.
- Currently, a maximum of 21 communities can be displayed in the Student Dashboard. If you have more than 21 communities, we recommend sharing community links directly with your students in a text lesson or via email. Including a link in a Course Welcome Email is a great way to notify your students of any communities they have access to when enrolling in your course
- Although communities cannot currently be deleted or archived, if you are no longer using a community, you can set it to draft publish status.
How to Create a Learning Community
- Go to Manage Learning Products
- Select Communities
- Click + New Community
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From here, you will be able to select a name for your Community
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Once you have named your Community, you will be redirected to your Community homepage
From this page, you will see helpful hints and tips on how to start building engagement, how to get set up, and how to welcome your students to your new Learning Community!
Looking for tips on how to grow and nurture your community? Check out our free Thriving Communities course!
Community Settings
Once you've created your new learning community, you will be able to update the following settings and customization options from within the Community Builder.
- Go to Manage Learning Products
- Select Communities
- Select the ellipses (three dots) on your community card, and hit Edit
Name, image, and description
In this space, you will be able to update the name of your community, the main community image (this will show on your community card on your community landing page), and the description of your community.
Appearance
Set the primary color and font for your community to match your branding! The color will be applied to the header and buttons of your community, and the font will be used as the main font throughout.
Banner Image
Upload an image to appear as your community's homepage banner. This will appear in the top right side of your community above your description.
Access
The access setting will allow you to select what groups are able to access your community, and how. From this section, you can choose from the following access levels:
- Students that purchase this community
- All students that are logged into your site
- Students in selected courses or bundles
- Students in selected groups
Learn more about community access options here.
Visibility
Visibility allows you to decide who can view your community. If you have chosen any of the last three options (mentioned above) as the access level for your community, the default visibility option will be set to Private. Learn more about Private and Hidden settings here.
SEO settings
Add search engine optimization (SEO) settings to help improve your community's visibility in searches.
Page Code
Insert code here if you need something unique to run on your community landing page. This is commonly used for page redirects.
Revenue Partners and Affliates
Assign Revenue Partners and Affiliates for this specific community.
Pricing
Primary pricing
From this section, you will be able to set the initial pricing option that will be displayed on the community landing page.
Learn about available pricing options and how to set them here: Set Your Product Pricing
Set additional pricing
From this section, you will be able to offer your customers additional pricing options to purchase your community. You can add as many prices as you like!
Learn more about how to Set Additional Pricing for Your Products.
Publish
Community publish status
From this section, you will be able to publish your community using one of the three available options:
- Draft
With this option, students will not be able to access or purchase this community. For students that previously had access, this community will disappear from their Student Dashboard.
Note: This status replaces the previous 'Only Me' status in the access settings. - Pre-order
Students can pre-order this community, but cannot access it. For students with access to this community, a community card will appear in their Student Dashboard with a 'Coming soon' label. - Published
Students will be able to access the community based on the access options selected in the 'Settings' tab. For students that have access, this community will appear on their Student Dashboard.
Learn more about Publishing Your Product.
Sharing link
This link goes directly to your community page where learners can start posting. Check out recommendations and other options for sharing your community here!
Build Your Community Landing Page
Your community landing page is a webpage on your site where you can showcase your community! Potential students can learn about what your community has to offer and in the case of a purchase-only community, this page can be used to direct students to your checkout.
Learn more about how to Build Your Community Landing Page.
View Your Community
Once you Save your community settings, you can view your community in a few different ways:
- Go to Manage Products
- Select Communities
- Click the ellipses (three dots) on the Community card
- Select Go to Community
Select Go to Community on the top right of Community Builder.
You can also select Copy Share Link and paste the link that is generated into your browser to access your Community.
More About Learning Communities
Drive Revenue with New Thinkific Communities