What are blogging communities?

Communities for bloggers and content publishers covering SEO, monetization, audience growth, and writing craft. Independent forums and Slack groups serve the most serious bloggers, with discussion ranging from keyword strategy and affiliate income to managing editorial calendars and building email lists.

Where do most blogging communities live?

Independent Platforms is the most common platform in this report (31% of 16 listings).

Are most of these communities free?

56% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.

How big is a typical blogging community?

Among listings with public size data, the average is 17K members and the median is 1K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.

What do these communities usually include?

Forum is the most common (81%). Others that show up often include courses, live chat, and paid community.

How does Hive Index collect this data?

Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.

Where can I see the full list?

The full directory is on Hive Index's Blogging topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Blogging Communities Report: Stats, Platforms, Trends &...

Executive Summary

We analyzed 16 blogging communities listed on Hive Index to understand where people gather, what these groups offer, and which communities attract the most interest.

The big picture: blogging communities are broad and fragmented, with many small groups and a few very large outliers.

Source: Hive Index community database · Updated 2024-01-14

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Communities: 16
Platforms: 8
Avg members: 17K
Median members: 1K

Where Blogging Communities Are Hosted

Independent Platforms
5(31%)
Slack
3(19%)
Facebook
2(13%)
Circle
2(13%)
Reddit
1(6%)
Discord
1(6%)
Mighty Networks
1(6%)
Skool
1(6%)

Format mix

Forum / feed-based
8(50%)
Chat communities
4(25%)
Private membership
4(25%)

Forum / feed-based is most common (50%), but chat communities is also well represented (25%).

Independent Platforms leads, but Slack and Facebook also represent meaningful shares.

Audience Size & Access

Community size

Tiny
<20 members
0(0%)
Small
20-100 members
0(0%)
Medium
100-1,000 members
6(38%)
Large
1,000-10,000 members
6(38%)
Huge
10,000-100,000 members
0(0%)
Massive
100,000-1M members
1(6%)
Gigantic
1M+ members
0(0%)

3 communities have unknown member counts.

Free vs paid

The average is much higher than the median (17K vs 1K), which usually means a few large groups are pulling the average up.

How Blogging Differs From Other Categories

Blogging is less free-to-join, smaller, more platform-diverse, and more paid or gated, compared with typical Hive Index topics.

Metric	Blogging	Hive Index average
Free to join	56%	85%
Median members	1K	25K
Average members	17K	669K
Paid or apply-to-join	44%	15%
Live chat	44%	38%
Discord share	6%	16%

Feature Mix

Common features appear in at least 15% of listings.

Common Features

Forum
81%
Courses
44%
Live Chat
44%
Paid Community
38%
Newsletter
31%
Online/Offline Events
31%
Member Perks
25%
Job Board
19%

Niche Features

Pairing
6%
Requires Application
6%
Tools
6%

Forum appears on 81% of listings.

What Visitors Click

Outbound clicks / mo: 90

Platform supply vs. clicks

Platform	Communities	Share of communities	Outbound clicks	Share of clicks
Independent Platforms	5	31%	1	1%
Slack	3	19%	70	80%
Facebook	2	13%	2	2%
Circle	2	13%	1	1%
Discord	1	6%	6	7%
Mighty Networks	1	6%	8	9%

Share is calculated within this topic.

Slack gets 80% of clicks but only 19% of listings, so visitors click it more than you'd expect from supply alone.

Most-clicked formats

Chat communities
76(86%)
Private membership
9(10%)
Forum / feed-based
3(3%)

Most-clicked features

Live Chat
85(97%)
Forum
82(93%)
Member Perks
71(81%)
Requires Application
70(80%)
Courses
10(11%)
Newsletter
10(11%)

Most-clicked size ranges

Medium
71(81%)
Large
17(19%)

Top-clicked listings

Growth Partners
70(80%)
The Creative Academy for Writers
8(9%)
Hashnode
6(7%)

Most clicks go to chat communities and private membership communities.

Trends

Founded year

2008

2011

2013

2014

2018

2019

2020

2021

7 communities have no founding year on file.

Most listed groups were founded around 2020.

Community Quality & Ratings

Only 1 community has ratings so far, so read this as a small sample.

5.0 average rating across 1 community.

Rated examples

Growth Partners
Slack · 5.0 stars · 127 members

Methodology & FAQ

Methodology

This report uses communities in the Hive Index database tagged as Blogging. We exclude removed or suppressed listings. Member counts, traffic, features, reviews, and ratings may vary by source and are updated periodically.

•This is a smaller slice of Hive Index's database, so read trends as directional.
•Last updated 2024-01-14

FAQ

: Communities for bloggers and content publishers covering SEO, monetization, audience growth, and writing craft. Independent forums and Slack groups serve the most serious bloggers, with discussion ranging from keyword strategy and affiliate income to managing editorial calendars and building email lists.
: Independent Platforms is the most common platform in this report (31% of 16 listings).
: 56% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.
: Among listings with public size data, the average is 17K members and the median is 1K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.
: Forum is the most common (81%). Others that show up often include courses, live chat, and paid community.
: Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.
: The full directory is on Hive Index's Blogging topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Keep exploring

Browse

All Blogging communities

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