What are communities on WhatsApp, how do communities work, and what should you do with communities? Are questions like these bothering you since you first heard or read about WhatsApp communities? Don’t worry. You have arrived on the perfect page. Here we have answered the most common questions about WhatsApp communities. Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
1. What Is a WhatsApp Community
In simple words, communities on WhatsApp allow group admins to organize and manage their related groups under one space. For instance, let’s say a school has a WhatsApp group for each class. The school admin can create a community on WhatsApp and keep all the school groups under this community.
The community admin or in our example the school admin can then keep track of and manage each group easily. They can add or remove groups or group admins, invite members to the community, and send announcements to all the members of the community using the Announcement group. Learn how to start a community on WhatsApp.
Note: Both your personal messages and calls in a community are end-to-end encrypted.
2. Who Should Use WhatsApp Communities
Communities are mainly helpful for group admins. So, if you are a group admin who manages multiple WhatsApp groups, you will love the WhatsApp community feature.
Schools, colleges, local clubs, and housing societies are some examples that can make use of WhatsApp communities. In addition to that, small workplaces can utilize WhatsApp communities to interact and manage their different teams, just like Slack.
3. What’s the Difference Between WhatsApp Groups and Communities
WhatsApp groups are a standalone entity, whereas community provides a space to keep and manage related groups under one umbrella. The groups are managed by group admins whereas a community is managed by a community admin, which can be the same or different from group admins. Read our post that dives deep into the differences between WhatsApp groups and communities.
4. How Many Groups Can a Community Have
In addition to the announcement group, each community can have up to 50 groups. So a total of 51 groups. Furthermore, at any given time, a community must have at least one group in addition to the announcement group.
5. What is an Announcement Group in WhatsApp Community
The announcement group offers a space for community admins to send broadcast announcements to all the community members. The announcement group is automatically created when you make a community and it has the same name as that of your community. The announcement group can have up to 5,000 members.
The members of the groups that are added to a community are automatically added to the announcement group. However, the community admin can also manually add or remove members from the announcement group. A community member can also leave the announcement group and still continue to be a part of the group that they actually belong to in a community.
Only the community admins can send a message to the announcement group. And, members can only see the total number of participants in the announcement group, they cannot see the names of the participants. It’s visible to community admins only.
Note: Members can mute notifications for the announcement group in the group settings.
6. What are the Roles and Powers of a Community Admin
The user who created the community is the community creator and he/she can add up to 20 additional admins to a community. Those can be similar or different from group admins. Thankfully, the community creator cannot be removed by other admins.
The community admins have the following powers:
- Add or remove admins.
- Add or remove groups.
- Create new groups in a community.
- Add or remove members.
- Ability to change community description and profile photo.
- Post to announcement group.
- Only the community creator can deactivate a community.
Tip: Learn how to add or remove admins from the WhatsApp community.
7. Who Can See the Groups Added to a Community
The groups that are part of a community are visible to all its members and of course, the admins. However, the members cannot see the names of the members of the groups that they aren’t part of.
For instance, let’s say there is a community XYZ with groups A, B, and C. A person named Barbie is part of community XYZ through group A. She can see the name of groups B and C in the community under the Other groups section.
8. Can Members Join Other Groups in a Community?
Yes, the community members can request to join groups that they aren’t part of. Simply, tap on the group name under the Other groups section and hit the Request to join button.
9. Can Members of a WhatsApp Community Interact With One Another
Only the members within the same group can see each other. Therefore, individual members can interact with one another only if they are part of the same group. However, if they belong to different groups, they cannot see or interact with each other.
For example, if you have two groups A and B in community XYZ, a member from group A cannot interact with any members of group B through the community unless they personally know each other.
10. Can Community Members Invite Others to Join a Community
The community members do not have the privilege to invite others to join a community unless the admin has shared the invite link with its members.
11. Can You Search for New Communities on WhatsApp
No. You can only see the communities that you are part of. There are no public communities on WhatsApp.
12. Is the WhatsApp Community Like the Folder Feature of Telegram
You can consider WhatsApp communities as an advanced version of Telegram folders. That’s because not only you can organize your groups in a community but you can even send a message to all the members of the community using the Announcement group of a community, which isn’t possible in Telegram folders.
Moreover, the participants of a community can see all of its groups. This again is missing in Telegram where folders only provide a way to organize multiple groups without adding any functionality.
13. What Happens When you Exit a WhatsApp Community
If you are part of a community you don’t like, you can easily exit it from the community info page by tapping on the Exit community button.
Leaving a community will make you exit all the groups that you were part of in that community. If you only want to remove yourself from a particular group, simply exit that group instead of leaving the community. You can always rejoin a community but you will have to meet certain rejoining conditions.
And, if you are the creator of the community, you will have to deactivate the community in order to exit it.
14. What Happens When You Deactivate a Community
Only the creator of the community can deactivate it. And when a community is deactivated, all its groups are disconnected from the community. That doesn’t mean the groups will be deleted. They will continue to exist just like regular groups and you can find them in the Chats tab of WhatsApp.
Explore New WhatsApp Features
Similar to WhatsApp Communities, there are some other cool features in WhatsApp. Learn how to call people on WhatsApp using links or add reactions to WhatsApp messages. Also, know how to send disappearing messages on WhatsApp.
