2024 Circle.so Beginners Tutorial - Build Your Online Community Fast

This is a step by step, beginners guide to building your own online community or membership site with joshhall.co/circle
We'll start off simple and get to more advanced features towards the end.
What's covered:
✅ Setting up your Circle
✅ Community Spaces
✅ Events
✅ Live Streams
✅ Courses
✅ Paywalls (with tiered access)
✅ Coupons and Invitation links
✅ Onboarding experience
All natively in Circle! It's the only "all-in-one" solution I've ever trusted and since 2020 when I began using Circle, I've never looked back.
Get a free 14-Day trial of Circle:
👉 joshhall.co/circle
** that there is my affiliate link 🙏 **
Additional Circle videos I created for you:
🔥 My top 10 Favorite Circle Features
• 10 Amazing Features of...
🔍 A behind the scenes look at how I use Circle to build and run my 250k/yr community Web Designer Pro™
• How I use Circle.so to...
00:00 - Intro & overview
00:32 - What we're going to cover
01:11 - Setting up your Circle
03:45 - Creating Space Groups
05:20 - Creating Spaces
08:00 - Overview of Posts & Text Editor
13:30 - Creating a Chat Space
14:20 - Creating an Event Spaces
18:00 - Adding Courses
19:45 - Creating a "Links" section
20:12 - Setting up Events and Live Streams
28:08 - Going Live in Circle
29:30 - Overview Course Builder
33:13 - Bookmark ANYTHING feature
35:08 - Paywalls
36:11 - Creating 2 Payment Tiers
39:15 - Creating Upgrade/Downgrade Subscription Groups
42:18 - Setting up Coupons
43:32 - Creating custom invitation links
45:45 - Adding members & creating profiles
47:27 - Troubleshooting private space issue
49:16 - Overview of built community
50:00 - Adding icons in theme customizer
51:19 - Workflows overview
51:54 - Live replays and storage
53:00 - Creating an onboarding experience
55:55 - Wrapping up
Check out where Web Designer Pro™ is today at:
webdesignerpro.com
Find out more and connect with me at:
joshhall.co
** Affiliate Disclaimer: if you use my link and upgrade to a paid account after your trial, I'll receive a kickback.**

[@podcastmentoring]

Thank you for the video. It has helped me a lot.

[@Robuilt]

This was one hour of absolute gold. Please tell me there will be a part 2?! PLEASE.

[@JoshHallco]

@Robuilt what other features do you want to see?

[@Robuilt]

Truthfully, you’ve covered the features pretty exceptionally. And I actually set mine up pretty easily based on this video! What I’d love for you to dive deeper into (and granted I understand this is niche) is more theory around pay walls and all the grouping you started to scratch the surface on. That’s where I’m struggling at the moment.
For reference, I’ve got 2800 students in my high ticket program. But I’m looking to move to a membership model and out of high ticket!

[@JoshHallco]

Ah nice! Yeah currently my community Web Designer Pro™ is one tier BUT I'm in the planning stage of moving to a 2 or 3 tier model once we hit the member cap on my coaching tier.
The paywalls in Circle are pretty robust and it's amazing how you can gate spaces and use them as upsells.
Once I nail down the next version of my community with the paywall tiers, I'll plan to unpack what I learn on that 👍

[@StudyRealEstate]

@@JoshHallco I’d also love to see this video, thanks Josh!

[@naehdeinenstil]

Hi Josh, thank you very much for this extensive tutorial. How would you set up your community, if you had a space that is for free, to warm up people and then upsell them to a paid membership with more features, content and community? I would appreciate your experience.
Thanks from Germany.
Elle

[@JoshHallco]

ooo good question, Elle. I would have either a starter course, newsletter, recent Q&A's or something of value that leads well into a paid offer.
For me I have this CZcams Channel, my Podcast and my Newsletter which are the big drivers (all free) so I don't have a free tier in my community. But it's a great way to go if you want to prime them.
Though, I'd consider making an entry level and capping the "free" aspect as a trial. Maybe 30 days free then $29/mo for example on a low tier. Otherwise you'll run the risk of having a HUGE group of free folks mixed in with paid members.
So in short:
Low tier (with free trial)
Higher tier
Or have a free group separate if needed.

[@naehdeinenstil]

@@JoshHallco Thanks for your answer! Could I possible have a part of the community open for everyone? E.g. something like a space with blog posts? Or do they have to become a member for this as well?

[@JoshHallco]

Yep you can have a combo of free spaces + premium spaces.

[@thenetnet5556]

Can't believe I watched the entire 1 hour video... and you never covered the right side bar.. and how you can configure that to display what you want there. Don't get me wrong... it was a good video and you are a gifted presenter... but some still struggle with the basics. Any chance you can make a short video on that?

[@JoshHallco]

There's definitely a LOT more I could've added but had to reel in the most important aspects since this is a beginner tutorial.
In any space you create, you can "pin" or set posts to the sidebard if that's what you're looking for.
Otherwise the home screen will show the trending posts and events 🔥
Hope that helps. And thanks for watching all the way through!