Create Online Professional Community Using Reign | WordPress BuddyPress Theme

Social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram reshaped how people connect online, and the numbers back it up: the Global Digital Report put worldwide internet users at 4.021 billion in 2018, with roughly 3.196 billion of them on social media, up about 13 percent from the year before. It’s no surprise entrepreneurs keep looking for ways to build their own version of that, on their own site.

Create Online Professional Community

Building a site or blog on WordPress is neither difficult nor expensive, and the same goes for a professional online community. BuddyPress, the open-source plugin that turns WordPress into a social network, is what makes that possible.

It’s customizable, user-friendly, and works well for a college, a company, or any niche community, supporting the social-network features people expect: profiles, member types, activity streams, groups, and group types.

In practice, BuddyPress lets members of your community:

• Create and update profiles, including profile photos.
• Befriend other users on the same community site.
• Send private messages, similar to Facebook.
• Form and join groups under group administrators.
• Follow activity streams, sitewide or for a particular user.
• Publish blog posts through a full-featured platform.
• Take part in forum discussions.

That’s a solid foundation for a professional community. But a foundation is just a foundation, standing out takes more.

This is where a theme like Reign, The Ultimate BuddyPress Theme, comes in. Here are some of the features it adds.

Multiple Member Header Layout

Member headers decide how a single member’s page appears on your site. Reign gives you three layouts to switch between with a single click.

Multiple Group Header Layout

Same idea, but for groups. Three layouts control how a group’s page is laid out, pick whichever fits your site.

Multiple Member Directory Layout

Reign ships with three layouts for the member directory, the page that lists everyone’s account details. Choose whichever suits your community best.

Multiple Group Directory Layout

Two layouts control how the group directory itself is displayed, the page members use to find a group by name and see who’s in it.

Avatar Thumb Size

Controls the dimensions of user and group avatars across activity streams, member lists, and group lists, anywhere from 25x25px to 300x300px. Useful for keeping pages clean and fast-loading.

Avatar Full Size

The same idea, but for the larger avatars shown on user and group header pages, 100x100px to 375x375px. Worth setting to match your Avatar Thumb Size for visual consistency.

Avatar Max Size

Not every server wants to handle enormous avatar uploads. This setting caps how large a member’s uploaded avatar can be, anywhere from 320px to 1280px.

Default User Avatar

A custom placeholder image shown until a member uploads their own avatar. Better than a generic blank icon, and it signals to new members what kind of image is expected.

Default Group Avatar

Same idea as the default user avatar, but for groups that haven’t set one yet.

Default Group Cover Image and Image Size

The banner image at the top of a group page. You can set a default and adjust its size, from 1024x300px up to 1024x800px.

Default Profile Cover Image and Image Size

Same as the group cover image option above, just applied to member profiles instead. Size range is the same: 1024x300px to 1024x800px.

Inbuilt Social Profile Module

BuddyPress includes fields for linking a member’s Facebook, Twitter, Google, and LinkedIn accounts by default, plus an “Add New Site” option for anything else they want to link.

BuddyPress Extra Widgets

BuddyPress ships with useful widgets out of the box: Friends, Groups, Log In, Members, Recently Active Members, Sitewide Notices, Who’s Online, and Recent Networkwide Posts. If you want more, dedicated widget areas for the Activity Stream, Member Directory, Group Directory, Member Single Page, and Group Single Page, Reign adds those too.

• Reign Groups Widget, shows a list of groups, sorted by recently active, popular, newest, or alphabetical.
• Reign Members Widget, same sorting options, but for members.
• Reign News Widget, useful if your homepage isn’t your blog. Displays your latest posts wherever you place it.
• Reign Site Wide Activity, arguably the most useful of the four, since it surfaces your entire site’s activity stream.

Additional Plugins

BuddyPress is a strong foundation, but no plugin covers everything. These companion plugins fill in some of the gaps:

BuddyPress Activity Filter, configure which default and custom activities appear on the front end.

BuddyPress Activity Social Share, share activity post updates out to other social platforms.

BuddyPress Check-ins, lets members share their location when posting, similar to Facebook check-ins.

BuddyPress Create Group Types, categorize your site’s groups.

BuddyPress Default Data, auto-generates users, groups, activity, messages, and profile data, handy for testing a new build without populating everything by hand.

BuddyPress Favorite Notification, lets members opt into notifications for specific activity types, like shares and likes.

BuddyPress Group Reviews, lets members post reviews of groups, with optional criteria-based ratings.

BuddyPress Job Manager, turns your community into a job board where members can post and apply for jobs.

BuddyPress Lock, restricts content and activity from logged-out visitors.

BuddyPress Member Reviews, lets members post reviews of each other, with optional criteria-based ratings.

BuddyPress Polls, an engagement booster that lets members and groups run polls in the activity stream, in groups, or on profiles.

BuddyPress User To-Do List, lets members keep a to-do list on their own profile.

That’s a lot to take in, but each piece adds something real toward a community site that stands apart in a crowded market. If you’re still weighing it, try the Reign demo before deciding.

Good luck with your next community site.