Establishing a strong relationship with your audience is key to standing out as a podcaster. But how do you achieve it? Well, many tools can help you stay in touch with your audience. Most podcasters gravitate towards one of three options:
- Discord
- Slack
- Telegram
But, what’s the difference between the three? Which one should you choose? The best fit for your podcast will depend on several factors, including your podcast’s niche and audience demographics.
However, in this post, we’ll share some key information that will help you decide.
We’ll compare Discord vs. Slack vs. Telegram. And we’ll cover:
- What these platforms are
- Customization & features
- Cross-device availability
- Pricing
But first, let’s dive into why community-building should be a priority for your podcast.
Let’s get started!
Why Is Community-Building Important for Podcasters?
It may seem like you have everything you need for a successful podcast: a great setup, the best recording and editing software, a solid script, and even a small listener base. However, for your show to thrive, you’ll need to foster a sense of community among your listeners as well.
But, why is building a strong community in podcasting so important?
Basically,community-building helps you to:
- Stay connected to a loyal audience who will anticipate, enjoy, share and contribute to every episode
- Humanize your podcasting brand
- Boost your podcast subscriptions
- Create a content marketing strategy that’s guided by real user insights
- Increase your social media engagement
- Elevate your podcast’s perceived value and attract sponsors
Now you know how building a community could help your show grow. So let's look compare some of the most popular community-building platforms for podcasters: Discord, Slack, and Telegram.
Slack vs Discord vs Telegram: What Are They?
Before we break down each community-building platform in detail, let's dive into what these platforms are Slack, Discord and Telegram.
Slack
Slack is a freemium instant messaging platform with over 10 million daily users.
On Slack, communities and companies create “workspaces”, which are divided into channels. These channels host fluid text-based conversations.
While Slack was originally designed for workplace communication, some communities use it as well. Especially communities in the entrepreneurship space.
Discord
Discord is a free communication platform with text, voice, and video chat features. According to Business Insider, Discord had 140 million monthly active users in 2021, 40% more than in the previous year.
With Discord, you can create a “server” with text and voice channels. In this sense, it’s somehow similar to Slack.
Discord was designed for online gaming. But it’s also been adopted by communities and companies outside of the gaming industry.
Telegram
Telegram is a free messaging application with 700 million monthly active users.
On Telegram, communities are known as groups. They can be public or private and have up to 200,000 members. On the other hand, Telegram has channels. Telegram channels do not have a membership limit, but only administrators can post messages and announcements on them.
Unlike Slack’s workspaces or Discord’s servers, no channels can be “nested” within Telegram groups. Think of them as regular Whatsapp or Apple Messages group chats.
Customization & Features
Every communication platform will offer you a set of unique customization features. Let’s compare each platform and analyze some pros and cons.
Discord
There are a number of customization features available on Discord, including:
- The ability for server administrators to create channels at will, making every Discord server unique
- Custom user roles
- Chatbots & integrations
Discord makes community communication easy. And its customization features make the tool extremely malleable. So, every community can customize their Discord server to match their needs.
Pricing: Discord is free to use, with all its features. However, the platform also offers a subscription plan called Nitro. Nitro comes with HD streaming and more storage, for a monthly fee of $9.99. If you've got a big community, Nitro might be a good choice.
Slack
With Slack, you can:
- Create channels to taste, with no predetermined structure restricting you
- Enhance your community’s experience through bots & integrations
- Make audio and video calls
- Archive messages
- Share channels with other workspaces, through Slack connect
Unless you’re on a paid plan (which can be very inefficient for a large community), your Slack experience will feel very limiting. Especially if you compare it to Discord.
Pricing: Slack’s free version has limited functionalities. You can only have video calls with up to one person. Search features are limited. And you can only use up to 10 integrations. Slack’s paid plans come in three tiers:
- Pro at $7.25/month per active user
- Business+ at $12.50/month per active user
- Enterprise Grid at a custom price
Telegram
On Telegram, you can:
- Create groups or channels easily
- Send private messages to other users
- Audio and video calls
- Integrate with bots & third-party platforms (via Zapier or IFTTT)
- Create custom roles for group chat members
Pricing: Telegram's free version includes all of the platform’s key features. Yet, not long ago, Telegram launched its Premium version. It includes interesting extras such as audio transcriptions. Telegram's paid version costs $4.99 per month.
Cross-Device Availability
Discord, Telegram, and Slack are all 100% responsive.
Plus, the three platforms offer native apps for different devices and operating systems.
So, regardless of which option you choose, your listeners will be able to connect with you from just about anywhere.
Discord v Slack v Telegram: What’s Best for Your Community?
You already know how Discord, Telegram and Slack differ as community-building platforms. Fortunately, all three are intuitive and have easy-to-use interfaces. But, which one is the best to build your podcast’s community?
We recommend you ask yourself these questions:
Which platform is most popular with my audience?
This depends mostly on your podcast’s topic and your audience’s demographic makeup.
For instance, if your audience is mostly GenZ and your podcast focuses on pop culture, Discord may be more fitting than Slack. But, if your show is about human resources & remote work, Slack is probably a better option.
But why? In each case, that’s the platform where your audience is most likely to be. You don’t want your listeners to have to learn to use a new tool just to be a part of your community.
Which platform makes it the easiest for my audience to interact with other community members?
Despite being user-friendly, Discord or Slack are likely to appeal to more tech-savvy audiences, while Telegram will appeal to more classic and tech-novice audiences.
A group chat may be easier to figure out than a server/workspace with dozens of different channels.
Which features are key for your community space?
Which are the key features you need to interact with your community? Get a clear sense of what to prioritize and which features you can do without.
For instance, some communities may value the ability to hop on monthly or weekly community calls without leaving their favorite platform.
Which platform offers the best community management experience?
Don’t forget to consider which platform might be more practical for you and your podcast team to moderate.
What’s my budget?
Take into account each app’s cost-effectiveness for you and your users. You should choose one that offers key features and a great user experience at a reasonable price.
Consider these questions to determine whether you need an informal but effective platform like Discord, a more minimalist messaging app like Telegram, or something similar to Discord but more formal, like Slack.
Grow your Podcast’s Community with Short Video
Creating a private space for you and your community to interact is a great strategy to build a loyal listenership. But, how will you attract listeners in the first place?
This is where audiograms come in handy. And Audiotease makes it easy create and distribute them.
With Audiotease, you can:
- Turn your episode highlights into professional-looking audiograms
- Automatically transcribe up to 5 minutes of audio
- Easily share your favorite podcast moments on social media
All that and more, straight from your browser. Audiotease is cost-efficient and easy to use. Even if you’ve never edited a video before.
Grow your podcast’s community with the power of short videos. Create your first audiogram today, for free.