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Use the community SDK APIs to create communities, manage membership and roles, configure posting rules, and build discovery flows. Communities support public and private access modes, discoverability settings, join approval where configured, role-based permissions, and post or story moderation settings.
Looking for a step-by-step walkthrough? The Community Platform guide walks you through building communities with membership, governance, and moderation end-to-end.

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Core Capabilities

Community Discovery

Query, search, sort, and filter communities by membership, category, tags, and keyword

Membership Management

Join, leave, add, remove, query, ban, mute, and role workflows

Content & Moderation

Post settings, role-based permissions, reporting, and moderation actions

Administrative Tools

Community categories, metadata, tags, counts, and status fields
Community objects expose fields for identity, visibility, membership, moderation settings, tags, categories, counts, and status. Start with the fields your product needs, then add governance options as your community flows become clearer.

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Community Architecture

Communities in social.plus group posts, members, roles, and moderation settings under a single community object. Use communities for forums, interest groups, private spaces, announcement areas, and other social areas that need membership and content controls.

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Core Components

Visual Identity
  • Display name and description
  • Avatar and visual branding
  • Official verification status
  • Custom metadata fields
Discoverability
  • Public/private visibility settings
  • Search tags and categorization
  • Query, search, trending, and recommended collections where supported
  • Category-based organization

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Community Types & Access Models

social.plus supports community configurations for open discovery, controlled membership, and official community labeling:

Public Communities

Open Access: Can be discoverable and joinable by usersModerated Access: Can require approval to join when configuredContent Visibility: Build product-specific visibility behavior from community and post query results

Private Communities

Controlled Access: Intended for restricted membership flowsDiscovery: Usually hidden from general discovery depending on configurationMembership: Use invitation, add member, or approval flows that match your product

Official Communities

Official Flag: Community objects can expose official statusProduct Display: Use this flag for badges or filtering if your product needs itAdministration: Treat official designation as an admin-controlled field

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Common Community Fields

Community objects include identity, visibility, membership, moderation, organization, and status fields. Field availability and naming can vary slightly across SDKs, so use the model exposed by your target platform SDK.

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Core Properties

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Access & Visibility Controls

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Content & Moderation

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Organization & Discovery

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Counts & Status

For create and update flows, review the platform-specific community builder or options object. Some fields are read-only response fields, while others can be configured when creating or editing a community.

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Best Practices

Start Simple, Then Add Governance: Begin with community creation, query, join/leave, and basic moderation. Add categories, roles, approval, and notification settings as the product flow requires them.
Planning & Purpose
  1. Clear Purpose: Define community goals and target audience before creation
  2. Appropriate Access Model: Choose public/private settings based on community needs
  3. Governance Planning: Establish moderation policies and role structures early
  4. Growth Strategy: Plan discovery, onboarding, and member retention flows
Design Considerations
  • Start with basic features and expand gradually
  • Consider your target audience’s needs and behaviors
  • Keep privacy, moderation, and discovery decisions explicit
  • Design clear user journeys for joining and participating
Architecture & Development
  1. Data Modeling: Understand the community object structure before building
  2. Permission Architecture: Implement proper role-based access controls from the start
  3. User Experience: Design intuitive flows for joining, participating, and moderating
  4. Performance Optimization: Plan for pagination and live collection updates
Development Best Practices
  • Implement proper error handling for community operations
  • Use appropriate data validation for community properties
  • Design for mobile-first community experiences
  • Subscribe to live objects or live collections where supported by the target SDK
Operational Excellence
  1. Active Moderation: Implement consistent content oversight and member management
  2. Clear Guidelines: Establish and communicate community rules and expectations
  3. Member Engagement: Foster participation through events, discussions, and recognition
  4. Continuous Improvement: Use available counts, moderation state, and your product analytics to iterate on community features
Management Strategies
  • Establish clear moderation workflows and escalation paths
  • Create onboarding experiences for new community members
  • Implement feedback loops to understand member satisfaction
  • Regularly review moderation queues and community health signals
Sustainable Growth
  • Focus on quality over quantity in early growth phases
  • Implement referral and invitation systems for organic growth
  • Use query, search, category, tag, trending, or recommended community flows where they fit the product
  • Create incentives for active community participation
Scaling Considerations
  • Plan moderation resources as communities grow
  • Use SDK moderation actions and Console moderation workflows where appropriate
  • Consider community subdivision strategies for large groups
  • Monitor product metrics as membership increases

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Next Steps

Ready to start building? Choose your implementation path:

Create Your First Community

Step-by-step community creation guide

Implement Discovery

Build community search and browsing

Set Up Governance

Configure roles, permissions, and moderation
Need Help? Start with the creation, query, membership, and moderation guides below, then add categories, roles, and notification settings as your use case grows.