How to Use Community in UniLink (Build a Paid or Free Members-Only Space)

Create a discussion forum, manage membership tiers, pin announcements, and moderate conversations — all inside your UniLink page without a third-party tool.

Running your community on a separate platform means asking your audience to create yet another account somewhere else, remember another password, and check another app. Community brings your discussion space to the same URL as everything else on your UniLink page. Members who already follow your link-in-bio join with one click. This guide covers setup, membership tier configuration, moderation, and the pinned announcement tools that keep your space organized.

What Community Does

Community adds a gated discussion feed to your UniLink page. You control who can read posts, who can reply, and who can create new threads. Access can be free (anyone who signs up), paid (members on a specific Stripe-linked tier), or mixed (some content free, premium content behind a paywall).

Inside the community, members can create posts with text, images, and links. They can comment on each others' posts and react with emoji responses. You as the creator can pin announcements to the top of the feed, so important updates are always the first thing new members see, not buried under recent activity. Moderation tools let you delete posts, mute members, or remove access entirely without leaving the dashboard.

Community is not a live chat — it's an asynchronous forum, closer to a Facebook Group or Discord server than a real-time DM thread. That distinction matters for expectation-setting: your audience comes here to read and discuss at their own pace, not to get instant support. If you need real-time interaction, Smart Reply handles that; Community handles ongoing discussion and knowledge-sharing.

How to Get Started With Community

1. Open Community — In Dashboard go to Community in the left sidebar. If the option is not visible, check your plan — Community is available on Pro and Business tiers.
2. Enable Community on your page — Click Enable Community. A Community tab will appear on your public UniLink page immediately. It will show an empty feed until you post.
3. Name your community — Under Settings → General, set a community name (displayed to members), a short description (shown on the join page), and a cover image. Keep the description one sentence — it's a conversion tool, not a terms-of-service document.
4. Choose access type — Under Settings → Access, choose Free, Paid, or Mixed. Free requires only a UniLink account to join. Paid requires a connected Stripe account — if you haven't connected Stripe yet, you'll be prompted to do so.
5. Create your welcome post — Pin a welcome post before you invite anyone. It's the first thing every new member sees. Introduce yourself, explain what the community is for, and set expectations about posting frequency and rules.

How to Use Community

1. Set up membership tiers (paid access) — Under Community → Tiers, click Add Tier. Name the tier, set a monthly price, and write a short benefit description. You can have multiple tiers (e.g., Basic at $5/month, VIP at $20/month) with different post visibility per tier.
2. Configure post visibility — When creating a post, choose which tier(s) can see it: All members, Paid only, or a specific tier. This lets you mix free teasers with paid deep-dives in the same feed.
3. Pin announcements — After posting, click the three-dot menu on any post and select Pin to top. Pinned posts stay above the feed regardless of recency. Use this for rules, welcome messages, and important updates. You can have up to three pinned posts.
4. Moderate the feed — In Community → Members you can search members, view their post history, mute (stops them posting for a set time), or remove (revokes access immediately). Removed members lose access but their subscription charge stops at the end of the billing cycle.
5. Invite members — Share the direct community link (available under Settings → Sharing) or add the Community block to your UniLink page layout so it's discoverable on your public page. You can also email existing followers via the Audience tab.
6. Track engagement — Under Community → Analytics monitor active members, post count, comment rate, and churn. High churn with low comment rate usually means posting frequency is too low or content isn't exclusive enough to justify paid access.

Key Settings Explained

How to Get the Most Out of Community

The fastest way to kill a new community is to make it a one-way broadcast channel. If your feed is 90% your own posts and 10% member discussion, members feel like newsletter subscribers, not community members. In the first two weeks actively respond to every comment, ask questions at the end of your posts, and create at least one prompt-style post per week that invites member responses ("What's your biggest challenge with X right now?").

Exclusive content is the only sustainable reason to pay for a community membership. Think about what you already know but don't post publicly — raw opinions, behind-the-scenes process, early access to products, unfiltered Q&A. The paid tier needs to deliver something your free followers provably cannot get elsewhere. If you're just reposting things you put on Instagram, churn will be high.

Use the Tiers feature to create a clear value ladder. A free tier with limited read-only access, a mid-tier with posting rights, and a VIP tier with monthly group calls or direct DM access follows a proven structure. Members often start free, see value, and self-upgrade — no sales pitch needed. The analytics page shows you where in that funnel members are dropping off.

Moderation is not optional once your community reaches 100+ members. Unmoderated spaces attract spam and off-topic posts that degrade the experience for everyone. Set a clear rules post, enforce it consistently, and don't hesitate to remove members who violate it. A smaller, well-moderated community is more valuable than a large noisy one — for both members and your brand.

Troubleshooting Common Issues