Mighty Networks is a versatile online community platform that can also accommodate online courses and memberships, and many creators want to learn to use it.
If you’re one of them, this Mighty Networks tutorial will cover everything you need to know to navigate the platform and build an online community.
We’ll show you how to set up your community, add content to it, create an online course, and configure payments.
So without further ado, let’s get into the tutorial.
1. Create a Mighty Networks Account
Mighty Networks is a cloud-based community builder and to start using it, you just need to create an account on the platform.
Luckily, it offers a 14-day free trial, so you’ll get the chance to play around with its tools before committing to paying for it.
To claim your free trial offer, go to the Mighty Networks website and select the Free Trial option on the homepage.
You can sign up using your email or your existing Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Apple accounts.
If you choose the first option, it will ask you to enter your name in the first step and your email and password in the next.
In the last step, you’ll need to name your community (also known as network), which will be the central hub accommodating all content, including events and courses.
Your account is now ready, and you can move on to setting up your community, which we’ll discuss in the following chapter.
2. Set Up Your Community
When you sign up for Mighty Networks, it creates a community out of the box. You need to create a structure and configure a few settings before you can add content to it.
Configure the General Settings
Your Mighty Network has a simple layout. The community sections are listed in the left sidebar, while the activity feed is on the right. Other important settings are located separately in the header area under your profile icon.
To start working on your community, click on the profile icon and select Network Settings.
When you click on General Settings, you will see the option for naming your Mighty Network and writing a tagline and description.
You can add a section about what you’re creating, or you can add your location and a companion website that will appear on your landing page.
Here, you can also add your branding details. You can customize the colors and add imagery, including your logo and the primary image or video.
Under the Privacy, Search, and Invites sections, you can choose to make your network public, private, secret, or paid.
You can also customize who can send invites to the community, choosing between All Members or Only Host and Moderator.
Besides these, you’ll need to configure a few other things for your network.
Go back to the Network Settings page and select Premium Features.
Here, you can enable some of the premium features that Mighty Networks offers:
- Ambassador Program – Reward your members with virtual badges for referring new members to the community.
- Online Courses – Offer online courses inside your community.
- Groups – Create sub-communities inside your main network.
Additionally, you can customize your Request to Join form, adding up to five optional or required questions that visitors will answer when joining the network.
These premium features are available only on the Business plan. Read our Mighty Networks pricing guide to learn more about the plans.
Add Topics to Your Community
After configuring the general settings, you can start organizing your community. Mighty Networks has a lot of tools to help you organize your content, and Topics is one of them.
You can create as many topics as you want and group related posts under one topic to make it easier to find them. When you create a new post, Mighty Networks lets you assign a topic to it.
Your members will be able to filter content based on topics, and they can follow specific topics they’re interested in.
To create a new topic, go to Topics in the left sidebar. Then, click the + button on the right side of the screen.
Next, you need to name the topic and select All Members or Only Hosts and Moderators to choose who can contribute.
You can also add a brief description and add a color that will show on all posts assigned to this topic.
Create Groups
Groups are dedicated spaces within your Mighty Network where you can interact with specific groups of members. You can think of them as subcommunities inside your main network and manage who gets access to them.
To set up a group, go to Groups in the dashboard and click on the + button. Next, you’ll be asked to come up with the Group title, tagline, and description. After that, you can make the group public, private, or secret.
You can use the Groups feature to improve your members’ experiences in many ways:
- You can create interest-based groups.
- You can create smaller accountability groups.
- You can use it to offer a paid mastermind.
Set up the Discovery Page
The Discovery page is one of the most important Mighty Networks’ features, as it lets you showcase the most critical elements of your community to the members.
It lets you add sections for top posts, upcoming events, topics, top groups, top members, etc.
To manage the layout of the Discovery page, select Discovery from the left sidebar and click Manage in the top right corner of the page.
You’ll now see the options for managing the sections on your Discovery page.
You can mark or unmark the box next to a section to add or remove it. Then, if you want to reorder the sections, just drag and drop the items to your desired placements.
The Discovery page is a great way to let members discover your community and draw their attention to the most important elements.
If you need some inspiration on organizing your community, check out this list of Mighty Networks examples.
3. Add Content to the Community
Content is the core of any online community, and, fortunately, Mighty Networks lets you create various content types, including quick posts, articles, polls, events, livestreams, etc.
Let’s start by showing you how to create a new post.
Create a New Post
To create a new post, go to your Mighty Network homepage and click on the + button towards the top right of your screen. You’ll see the following content options:
- Go Live
- Quick Post
- Article
- Question or Poll
- Event
Click on whichever post type you want to use, and Mighty Networks will take you to the relevant editor. Here, you’ll be able to assign a topic to the post type you choose to create.
The most popular type of post is Quick Posts. You can also create one by simply start typing into the editor located at the top of your community.
You can add text, images, videos, or other files to a post. You can also assign a topic to your post to group it with other similar posts.
If you create a full article, Mighty Networks will take you to the article editor, where you get more formatting options and is more suitable for creating longer-form content.
Another extremely popular content type is Polls. To create one, select the Question or Poll option, and then you can choose between the various question types:
- Question
- Multiple Choice
- Hot Cold
- Percentage
Adding a poll/question to your community
For example, if you create a Multiple Choice poll, you can ask a question and give your users multiple answer options for that.
Similarly, if you create a Percentage poll, your users can answer your question using a percentage slider.
This is how you create different types of content in your community. You can follow the steps above to add any amount of content you want. The key is adding your content to the right topics and groups to ensure your members can easily access them.
Create an Event/Livestream
Besides regular posts, Mighty Networks lets you create events inside your community and do livestreams.
To create an event, go to the Events tab in your community and click on the + button.
This will open a new screen where you can:
- Select where you want to post the event
- Add event title and description
- Choose a schedule and make the event recurring if you want
- Select the event type and configure the delivery mechanism
- Configure RSVP settings
If you pick to deliver the event online, you can use one of the many delivery options. You can use the Zoom integration or other solutions like Google Meet or GoTo Webinar for live video events.
Apart from scheduled events, you can also do instant livestreams in your network. This is really useful for quick check-ins and helps boost community engagement.
To go live, click the + button from your network homepage, and select the Go Live option.
You just need to give access to your camera and microphone. You can also choose to record the livestream and notify your members.
When ready, click Go Live Now, and your session will start immediately.
Create a Welcome Checklist
The Welcome Checklist is a special Mighty Networks feature that lets you manage the initial experience of new members. Through the checklist, you can guide your members through different elements of your community step-by-step.
You’ll find the Welcome Checklist in Network Settings under Content. Click Manage to get started.
Here you’ll see some default items added to your checklist, and you can remove them if you want. You can add a post, article, or event to your checklist by clicking the + button at the top.
There are other action items you can add to your checklist. To see them, scroll down to the Mighty Suggestions section.
Here are some example action items available:
- Download the App
- Follow a Topic
- Write a Post
- Invite Somebody to the Network
Once you’re done customizing the checklist, you can see it on the right side of your community area. This is precisely how it will appear to your members as well.
4. Create an Online Course
With Mighty Networks, you don’t have to stick to community posts and events only, as the platform lets you create online courses through your network as well.
You can create a course to engage your members or monetize your community.
To create a course, go to the Courses tab in your community and click the + button.
Write down the course title, tagline, and description and configure the privacy and invite settings. Then, you can decide what to call your table of contents, lessons, and sections.
After that, you can set up your curriculum and add lessons and sections to your course. Mighty Networks has a simple drag-and-drop course builder.
To create a new section, click the Add Section option at the bottom of your screen. Click the Add Lesson button at the bottom of a section to add a lesson.
When you’re happy with the curriculum, you can start adding content to your lessons.
Hover over a lesson and click Edit next to it. This will open the lesson editor, where you can add your content in the Start Writing Your Lesson Here area.
You’ll also see the + button. Click on it to add other content types to your lesson.
Mighty Networks supports many types of content, including text, images, videos, and other files. Likewise, you can include video links and other embeds into your lesson.
When you’re done creating your course curriculum, it’s time to configure the course activity feed.
Each course in Mighty Networks gets its own community space, which has the same capabilities as the main network but can only be accessed by the course students.
Go to Manage -> General Settings from the curriculum page and scroll down to the Course Details section.
Here you can enable/disable the activity feed and also make it the default page when students access the course.
Your course is now ready, and you can move on to setting up a pricing plan.
5. Set up a Pricing Plan
The first step in creating a pricing plan is to set up a payment gateway.
Mighty Networks only supports Stripe as its payment processor, so you’ll first need to create an account on Stripe if you don’t already have one.
To connect your Stripe account, go to Network Settings -> Payments -> Stripe Settings and click on Connect Stripe. Then, just follow the prompts, and you can complete the integration.
To create a new plan, go back to Payments, select Plans, and click the Create Plan button.
Next, you need to select what the plan will include. You can include access to your main network, courses, and groups.
You also need to fill in a few details, including a sales pitch, a benefits list, and a description.
When it comes to pricing, Mighty Networks gives you the following options:
- One-Time Payment
- Subscription
- Free
Subscriptions can be monthly and annual, and you can offer a free trial period to your members.
You can also choose which platforms the plan will be available on, picking between:
- Web and Android
- Web, Android, and iOS
- iOS
Lastly, you can charge in multiple currencies, depending on what your Stripe account supports.
After you write down the price, click Finish, and your plan will be ready.
6. Landing Page and Final Settings
Before you can start inviting customers to your community, you need to give some final touches to your community.
Set Up Your Landing Page
In Mighty Networks, your main network gets a dedicated landing page.
You can access it by going to Network Settings -> General Settings, and under Branding -> Landing Page, click Manage.
This will take you to the page builder, where you can customize your landing page.
However, the Mighty Networks page builder is rudimentary, and there aren’t many customization options available.
The default landing page has a hero area, a description section, and a pricing section.
You can edit the colors, imagery, and text, but beyond that, there’s not much you can do with the landing page.
You can’t add new sections to your page or modify the available sections’ design.
Additionally, you can’t just create new pages from scratch or make individual landing pages for products like online courses.
Integrate a Custom Domain
Another thing you may want to consider before launching your community is integrating your own domain with your Mighty Network.
While you can easily use the default subdomain that Mighty Networks gives you, setting up a custom domain will be better from a branding perspective.
You can integrate your custom domain by going to General Settings and, under Domain, selecting Use Your Own Domain.
Then, under Paste Your Domain Here, paste your domain.
To activate the custom domain, you’ll need to do some CNAME configuration. Please follow the steps listed in the attached help article.
Make a Test Purchase and Check the Flow
A great way to ensure you haven’t missed anything while setting up your community is to make a test purchase yourself. This way, you can check the flow of your network from the point of view of a customer and correct any errors.
If your Mighty Networks is free, you can simply log out of your account and sign up for the network as a customer. On the other hand, if you’ll be charging for your product, enable the free trial period and try your product this way.
We recommend that you also download the Mighty Networks mobile app and check everything there.
Start Inviting Members
After you’ve completed all the steps mentioned in this tutorial, you can invite members to purchase your paid plans to access your products via shareable links.
To create one, just go to Network Settings, and click on Plans under Payments.
Then, click on the Share Plan tab of the relevant plan and click Create a Share Link. This link will allow potential customers to purchase the plan directly, and you can start accepting new members right away.
Conclusion
This Mighty Networks tutorial covered all the steps you need to take to launch your online community on the platform.
We discussed how to manage your network settings, add content to your community, create an online course, and charge for access to your network.
Mighty Networks has a lot to offer for community building and engagement and is our recommended choice if you want to build a community-focused online business.
If you haven’t signed up for it yet, you can start a free trial here.
We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to use Mighty Networks. Do you have any questions? Then share them down below!
