The Dos and Don'ts of BuddyPress

BuddyPress is a WordPress plugin designed to help you add community-building features to your site to drive growth. However, BuddyPress comes with a heap full of caveats that you might want to consider first prior to deploying it on your production site.

Transcript

1. The Dos and Don’ts of BuddyPress
2. What is BuddyPress It’s a plugin that adds community-building features like user profiles, messaging, groups and activity streams to drive growth.
3. A Quick History on BuddyPress • 2007: Andy Peatling builds a site called ChickSpeak which utilizes social networking capabilities • 2008: Automattic acquires BP and dev ramps up • 2010: WPMU isn’t required; supports child themes • 2013: BP becomes theme agnostic • 2014-2016: More features, better performance
4. How’d I Get Involved? This...
6. BuddyPress Child Themes Once BuddyPress introduced child themes, I began making and marketing themes that totalled more than 100,000 downloads in 3 months.
7. The State of the Buddy BuddyPress is in an “identity crisis”... Because nobody really cares about your next community-driven site.
8. Why? What happened? • Volume: Social networking sites are saturated. There’s a site for every niche community. • Mobile Devices: iOS/Android app saturation. There’s also an app for every niche community. • Expectation: Matured UX/UI experience. Slack, Facebook, Google, Soundcloud, etc. all have set the bar for what people expect social-driven experiences to look like.
9. BuddyPress Shortcomings • Speed: It’s slower than what we’re used to. We take single-page and native app speed for granted. • Lack of AI: It’s not smart. There is no built-in recommendation engine similar to what makes Facebook, Pandora, Amazon or Google powerful. • BP ecosystem: It’s different. The financial reward isn’t quite there because, while everyone wants a website, not everyone needs BP features.
10. Should you use BuddyPress? It depends. Do you really need BuddyPress? Probably not. Will I keep using BuddyPress? Definitely.
11. The Dos When should you use BuddyPress? • Majority of users are asking for more features • You already have a large user base to start out with • You have enough resources to grow a community • You legally need ownership of your user data • Hypergrowth isn’t a requirement
12. The Don’ts When should you NOT use BuddyPress? • You don’t like providing customer support • You have no significant active following anywhere • You’re not fully passionate about your site’s topic • You lack resources to support growth • You don’t like to code; BP isn’t very modular when it comes to design
13. Good use cases for BP • Building a community where Facebook is blocked • Building niche communities like alumni groups • Building a member or directory-based intranet • Building a beta product which utilizes BP features
14. Tips for BuddyPress • Engagement over content • Content over features • Fewer features over more features • Custom over commercial themes • Social sign-in over custom registrations
15. Useful BP plugins • MediaPress - Frontend media content uploader • BuddyPress Follow - Twitter-like following option • BuddyPress Docs - Document sharing option • BuddyDrive - File storage/sharing option • Bowe Codes - Shortcodes for BP • BuddyPress Instant Messaging - IMing option
16. Helpful Resources & VIP BP People • BuddyPress.org, BuddyDev.com, BuddyBoss.com and OpenTute+ • People to follow: JJJ, Paul Gibbs, iMath, boone, mercime, modemlooper, Tammie Lister, Hugo Ashmore, Sarah Gooding • BP Alternatives: WP Symposium Pro, PeepSo, WordPress Profile Builder Pro, Ultimate Member
17. The Once-Over Should you use BuddyPress? It depends. Do you really need BuddyPress? Probably not. Will I keep using BuddyPress? Definitely.
18. Comments, Questions Gripes or Concerns?
19. mike@epictum.com @mfgmk @glossyhooks