I want to make a group chat for beta users. Slack or Discord?

Sofya Narbut
23 replies
Hi makers! As we are approaching the launch, I am busy planning out how do we work with beta users first. I thought it would be nice to make a chat for people participating in beta so we can quickly respond and also people can connect with each other (maybe it can be the starting point of our community, who knows). Right now I have two options at hand: Slack and Discord. Seems like everyone has Slack installed, but it is heavily associated with work. Looks like Discord is a more friendly, but I'm not sure if our audience uses it that much. What do you guys think? Does anyone have experience of setting up a chat for beta users?

Replies

Dafni Chontou
Good luck with the launch, Sofya! Personally, I prefer Slack as it's already part of my stack. I tend to forget to check out Discord.
Anurag Singh
@dafnihnd @sofya_narbut I find even slack communities I have joined are difficult to keep track off (so many😬). We built ultrainbox.io - to pull in specific Slack groups + specific channels only, and ignoring the rest. Has helped stay connect with the groups I really want to be engaged with.
Talia Bender
Hi Sofya! We use Slack, which is great, but there are a couple of catches. It's best to have an individual whose specific role within your company is community moderator. We have found that our forum members have many questions that are best answered quickly by someone internal. Second, Slack is super widely used, but it is not searchable from Google. Therefore, it does not help improve SEO ranking and conversations can be tricky to find after a while. Aside from these two points, I don't view Slack as too heavily associated with work. For me, I enjoy being able to pop into various forums all in one place. Hope this helps!
Sofya Narbut
@taliambender thanks a lot, Talia! For some reason I didn't consider that forums do contribute to the SEO greatly.
Ng Fang Kiang
I would go for Slack.
Alexandra Kazakova
Hi Sofya! At Cash Flow Portal, we've set up WhatsApp groups for our users, which include our CEO, developers, and an account manager. We respond very quickly and if customers face bugs or request new features - we are able to deploy them fast because the developers are part of this chat.
Anurag Singh
@alexandra_kazakova2 @sofya_narbut in certain markets whatsapp groups are way more effective. We (ultrainbox.io) have an early user group for feedback on whatsapp.
Unless you're in the gaming area I'd go for Slack - just because the notifications are just way better than Discord
share9
@maxwellcdavis What about the Slack notifications?
@share9app Well because you're normally part of many Discords you tend to turn off the notifications - whereas Slack you're usually just on a couple. So I tend to miss the Discord ones but pickup the Slack ones.
Anurag Singh
Would recommend Slack. Discord has too much noise, spam DMs if users are in the NFT space. Whichever one you use, consider linking them into, and managing them via https://ultrainbox.io :) #alpha live.
Sofya Narbut
@singhanurag thanks, Anurag! I will check out your product
Anurag Singh
@sofya_narbut thank you so much Sofya. Just so you know Slack is integrated and live but Discord is in the roadmap.
christian graves
discord but w/ the right mods, bots + vibes.. happy to help ✨
Ruben Lozano
Hi there, Yes, I expect Slack will be the best solution if the beta product is more like a B2B. If the solution is more like B2C you might use Telegram?
Sofya Narbut
@rubenlozanome the solution is more like b2c. I thought Telegram is not as popular in the US and Europe (where the audience we want to reach is), so I was hesitant to even consider it
Ruben Lozano
@sofya_narbut Recently I am seeing more people using Telegram than before. Slack I see a tool for business. I don't see users using Slack. Depending of the buyer persona you have, Discord it might be good too if they are gamers or developers users. I see more other kind of tools to connect with B2C users like Telegram, Whatsapp even Messenger. I hope that could help. :D
share9
Discord due to Slack being annoying to have a separate login etc. But agree Discord can be noisy as far as notifications.