Engaging your audiences on your Telegram and Discord channel or group is crucial to crypto community management. Both crypto community management apps are favored by the Web3 community and offer the opportunity to personalize interaction between you and your supporters.
Telegram is the older contender, in this case, being launched in 2013. Its privacy feature that allows users to remain anonymous is what drew the crypto community to Telegram. So, when it comes to crypto community management, Telegram is a platform you must tap into as it is more popular.
Discord, a voice and messenger app that debuted in 2015, was designed specifically for the gaming community. However, due to its highly scalable and customizable interface, the crypto community now sees Discord as an ideal platform to engage. Furthermore, games are a huge part of the DeFi space today, so it’s no surprise that Discord has become a strong competitor of Telegram. Understanding the various Discord features is thus critical when developing an effective crypto community management strategy.
The next question you’re probably wondering is which of these crypto community management apps is best for your company. As crypto community management experts who have helped many crypto businesses scale their Telegram and Discord channels, both have something unique to offer. Here’s a high-level overview of the main differences between Discord and Telegram.
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Discord and Telegram: Key Differences
| Telegram | Discord |
| Telegram has 550 million active users per month. | Discord has more than 150 million monthly active users. |
| It supports end-to-end chat encryption and offers complete anonymity and privacy to users. | It has no clear policy on protecting users’ data and privacy. |
| A minimalistic interface – poses some difficulties in streamlining the multiple aspects of community management. | An intuitive interface – allows community managers greater flexibility in categorizing channels based on specific functions. |
| Supports the sharing of large files up to 1.5 GB. | Does not support sharing of large files. |
| Completely free. | Has a premium plan for additional features. |
| Prone to spamming. | Offers better protection against spamming. |
| Supports secret chat servers with an in-built option to send self-destructing messages. | Does not support secret chat and has no in-built option for self-destructive messaging. |
We’ll go over the features that are unique to Telegram and Discord, as well as how you can use them to create a killer crypto community management strategy, but first, let’s talk about some of the common factors.
Telegram and Discord: Similarities
- Both are messenger apps where you can create public communities.
- Your channels can have unlimited subscribers on both Telegram and Discord.
- Both apps are breeding grounds for crypto enthusiasts.
- Telegram and Discord are compatible with any device, and both have web and mobile apps for iOS and Android users.
- Both support options for video calls and screen sharing.
- You can use bots on both of these platforms to automate processes. You can also use moderation bots to protect your community from spammers.
Telegram Community vs. Discord Servers: The Basic Difference
There are two types of crypto communities you can create on Telegram – a group and a channel. So, what is the difference between a Telegram group and a Telegram channel? A Telegram group can have up to 200,000 members. A crypto telegram public group is ideal for you if your agenda is to interact with your audience. To have people join, you must promote your Telegram group through various marketing strategies. Some of the features of a Telegram group are:
Crypto communities can be created and managed on Telegram via a group and a channel. But let’s find out the features, benefits, and limitations of a group and a channel.
| Features | Telegram Groups | Telegram Channels |
| Membership Limit | Up to 200,000 members | Unlimited members |
| Admin Capabilities | All members are equal, with the ability to promote/demote other members to admin status | Administrators with different levels of permissions can be assigned |
| Posting Rights | All members can post | Only channel owners and admins can post |
| Content Visibility | All messages are visible to all members | Channel owners can choose to make messages visible to all members or only selected groups |
| Messaging History | Full messaging history is visible to new members | Messaging history is only visible to new members after they join |
| Media Sharing | Members can share a wide range of media formats, including photos, videos, and files | Only channel owners and admins can share media, such as photos, videos, and files |
| Moderation Tools | Moderation tools are available, including the ability to remove messages and ban users | Moderation tools are available, including the ability to remove messages and ban users |
| Searchability | Groups are searchable and can be found via search engines | Channels can be searched within Telegram and via links |
| Privacy Settings | Groups can be public or private | Channels can be public or private |
| Analytics | No analytics available | Analytics are available, including insights into subscribers and message performance |
| Bot Integration | Bots can be integrated into groups | Bots can be integrated into channels |
Reasons to choose Telegram for community management
It’s a good practice for a new crypto business to manage a crypto community on Telegram via a group. After all, everyone wants to feel connected to your product and get heard. A Telegram group drives engagement. To protect your group from spammers, you can use Telegram moderation bots that are designed to detect and prevent spamming.
Can you run a Telegram group and a channel at the same time?
Yes, in fact, it is a practice you should follow, and you can link your group to your Telegram channel. This way, anything you post on your Channel will automatically get reposted on your group.
All in all, you can also create a channel in collaboration with a group to make announcements, share educational content, and so on. Creating a Telegram channel is an important part of managing a crypto community because it can be used to establish your authority. A Telegram channel could be a go-to place for your audience to learn about product updates, contests, benefits, and general information. Telegram’s algorithm ranks channels based on the number of subscribers they have, so you must actively market your Telegram channel.
Members frequently complain about receiving too many group notifications. You can send silent messages to Telegram groups and channels to avoid bombarding your subscribers with notifications all day.
Discord Servers vs. Telegram Channels: What’s the Difference?
Let’s say you want to be a part of a large group of people with whom you share similar interests and with whom you would like to engage in real time. Your natural inclination would be to join an online group of like-minded people. For example, if you are into crypto trading, you would join a group of active crypto traders.
However, there is one issue here with one of the most popular crypto community management apps like Telegram. With so many conversations going on at once, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. This is an issue with Telegram. After a while, things just get messy. Discord, on the other hand, has a more user-friendly interface with more features to help with communication. As a result, Discord has grown in popularity, and the crypto community has followed suit. For this reason, many crypto/DeFi projects manage their crypto community on Discord as a crypto business.
The server is to Discord as groups and channels are to Telegram, but a Discord Server works differently than Telegram groups. The best part about Discord servers is that they can be organized based on personal preferences. This means that, similar to Slack channels; you can create different channels within a single server and categorize them by themes and topics. In short, you can create multiple categories for the types of interactions you want with your audience and new channels within each category. A Discord server can have up to 500 channels and an unlimited number of users.
Setting Permissions
Setting up permissions is another feature that gives Discord an advantage over Telegram. You can assign roles to specific members on a server. You can, for example, choose moderators or administrators to assist in maintaining the integrity of a specific channel. You don’t want everyone to have access to all of a channel’s features? That, too, can be customized.
With Discord, you can reward your top users and give them the opportunity to become high-ranking community members. It’s natural for channels with thousands of members to become clogged over time, and an important update may get lost in the shuffle. Discord can rank comments based on their importance to prevent this from happening.
In short, Discord provides built-in mechanisms to regulate user behavior in channels and groups, which Telegram does not. All you have to do is design a blueprint for your crypto community management strategy in order for Discord to become a success. It’s all in preparation.
Final Thoughts: Who Wins the Battle?
When it comes to data privacy and anonymity, Telegram is the clear winner, and this is the primary reason why so many crypto enthusiasts flock to this platform. Telegram provides an opportunity to a large number of crypto users from countries where cryptocurrencies are prohibited, with features such as secret chats that can take place outside Telegram’s main server and self-destructing messaging. Furthermore, the ability to share large files could be considered an added benefit.
These are some of the features that Discord does not have, but Discord does have something else. It’s a far superior tool for managing a crypto community. Crypto enthusiasts flock to Discord crypto channels to have meaningful, coherent conversations without worrying about spam attacks. Furthermore, because of its primary association with the gaming community, Discord is an excellent platform for DeFi play-to-earn and the NFT space.
So who wins the battle? Well, we would say both. If you want your crypto community management to be a successful venture, you must take advantage of both platforms. Blockwiz is a crypto marketing firm that has helped many crypto businesses build successful communities on Telegram and Discord. Looking for suggestions to plan your own crypto community? Why not hit us up? We’re happy to help.
