[FAQ]

Hi everyone! I’m starting a new community for board game enthusiasts here in Manila, and I’m stuck on which platform to use.

On one hand, literally everyone I know is on WhatsApp, so it would be super easy to get people to join. But I’ve heard that for bigger groups, Telegram is much better with all its features like channels, polls, and better admin tools. I’m worried a WhatsApp group will become too noisy and hard to manage if we grow.

For those who’ve tried both, which one is really better for building an active, long-term community? I’m torn between easy sign-ups and better features. Thanks in advance!

[Jeff Bullas]

This is the fundamental strategic choice for many community builders today.

Short Answer: WhatsApp is better for small, intimate groups due to its universal reach, while Telegram is superior for large, scalable communities because of its advanced features for content organisation and administration.

The right choice depends on how you plan to use different content formats to engage your members.

The decision centres on a trade-off between accessibility and capability, especially in how each platform handles your content. Firstly, regarding text-based content, Telegram provides far better organisation. Its ‘channel’ feature allows for clean, one-way text broadcasts for important announcements, which can be linked to a separate group for discussion. A standard WhatsApp group mashes all text together, which quickly becomes chaotic and unmanageable as the group grows. Secondly, for rich media like images and video, Telegram’s capabilities are vastly superior. It supports file sizes up to 2GB, allowing you to share high-quality video content or large photo albums without the aggressive compression found on WhatsApp. Thirdly, Telegram has a significant advantage with native interactive content formats. The ability to create polls and quizzes directly within the app is a powerful text-based engagement tool that WhatsApp completely lacks. Finally, for sharing resources like PDF rulebooks or audio recordings of a session, Telegram’s cloud-based storage is a clear winner, ensuring all members can access large files easily from any device at any time.

Cheers,

Jeff

[Author]

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