Have you heard about BuddyPress? If you have, you’re here to find out everything there is to know about this piece of software.
After all, you must know if BuddyPress is the best choice for your site. Our helpful beginners’ guide is here to tell you everything there is to know about BuddyPress and whether you should use it for your site.
But first, what is BuddyPress?
What Is BuddyPress?
BuddyPress is a niche community plugin that you can add to your WordPress site. You can use BuddyPress to take your site beyond a blog and access the features you would expect when you’re part of an online community.
For example, you can use BuddyPress to create user profiles, organize users, create groups and activity streams, and enable notifications for your users.
Instead of retaining a passive user base, you can easily use BuddyPress to establish an online community for your website.
Who Can Use BuddyPress?
You don’t need to have a high-traffic website to use BuddyPress. Many organizations use BuddyPress to engage with their community.
Universities, schools, and colleges have used BuddyPress to establish a campus-wide social network their students can access to communicate in a safe environment.
Companies have used BuddyPress to create a secure method of communicating with each other on an internal channel. But while these organizations have a larger scale on BuddyPress, you’ll find a place for smaller communities to use the Buddypress links plugin.
Suppose you have a niche social network for a specific interest. In that case, you can use BuddyPress to ensure everyone can communicate in the same place and not have to worry about switching to a different site.
We would say that anyone can use BuddyPress, as this plugin doesn’t require any payment plan. You can use it for any site; it’s just how you use it. But how can you use it, and what can you do with it?
What Can You Do With BuddyPress?
You can do a lot with the BuddyPress plugin, so we’ve included a selection of different features it uses.
Extended Profiles
Using BuddyPress, you can have the flexibility of creating relevant profile fields for you and your community. You can allow your users to customize their profiles.
You can also adjust who sees each user’s profile and allow them to customize these settings too. Of course, it also makes it easier for users to change their information, upload an avatar, and customize their account settings.
Settings
Your users can also access their own settings page, which differs slightly from their profile settings. Here, there are a few default subpages they can access.
For example, they have general settings where they can change passwords and email settings.
Users can also change their notification settings. They can disable email notifications if they aren’t interested in receiving post status updates on everything taking place on the site.
Lastly, they also have a section to arrange to delete their account if they no longer wish to use your site. There are also other pages depending on the settings you choose to let your users access via BuddyPress.
Groups
With BuddyPress, you can allow your users to create a group. When a user creates a group, they become the group’s admin and can approve requests to join groups and invite friends.
They can also decide if their group is hidden or extend privileges to other members if you give them those permissions.
Your users can also access the Groups Directory to find a specific group or look at all the groups available. They can see both Public and Private groups. Hidden groups will only be visible to those already in them.
Activity Streams
BuddyPress also comes with an activity stream, which allows you and your users to see what new activity is on the existing WordPress site.
The activity stream is a great way to see what is happening on your site, such as activity on blog posts, new friendships, and new comments on a blog post. You can also customize what activity stream is available on the site.
You can also customize your activity streams for different groups or individual members. You or your members can customize these settings to suit your needs.
Notifications
When using BuddyPress, notifications are one of the essential aspects of the user experience. You and your users can access different notifications, such as in the admin bar profile menu.
You’ll find that there are new notifications when there is a new activity, you receive a message, you receive a friend request, or when there’s a new group activity.
Through BuddyPress, your users can adjust their email notifications and decide when to receive new notifications. We previously covered this in the settings section of our article.
Friendships
You can use BuddyPress to let your users identify when they know other members. You can allow users to accept friend requests, and it works best when you have other components active.
If you want to make the most out of your friends component, you should activate groups, the activity stream, and settings.
While it can be a way to show which of your users know each other in reality, it can also be useful to allow users to remember who they interact with on your site regularly.
Private Messaging
WordPress Users can private message each other on your site, which allows them not to rely on your blog’s comments section. They can send messages to other community members.
Each member receives notifications of a new message through email, notifications, or a number in the messages tab.
BuddyPress Extensions
You can also find other extensions to extend BuddyPress, as it also has extensions as the WordPress theme does. You can find various plugins with full resources on their forums.
Why should you use it now that we have discussed what you can do with BuddyPress?
Why Should You Use BuddyPress?
The reason you should use BuddyPress is so you can build a community and encourage engagement. Whether you have a small business or serve a specific product, you can use BuddyPress to engage with those visiting your BuddyPress site.
If you want to engage with those who visit your site if you run a blog, you can use BuddyPress to talk to those who visit. You can understand why people visit your BuddyPress sites.
If you’re a content creator, using BuddyPress can be a great way to improve your visibility among your followers. So, there are a lot of positives to using BuddyPress and no negatives. Not even the price can stop you from using it.
How Much Does BuddyPress Cost?
The best thing about BuddyPress is that it’s a completely free open-source WordPress plugin. Anyone can download BuddyPress on the WordPress dashboard, so you don’t have to worry about paying monthly fees.
You don’t have to pay for extensions either, so if you want to expand your community, you can do so free of charge.
Final Thoughts
We hope this beginner’s guide has helped you decide whether BuddyPress is the right plugin for you. If you’re interested in BuddyPress, visit their WordPress website to learn more.
If you want to know more about BuddyPress plugins and other ways to improve your site or business, please check out some of our other articles.
