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Invision Community Blog

Managing successful online communities

Matt's Blog

6 Degrees of Separation

We do love a parlour game at Invision Community HQ and we were playing "6 degrees of separation" recently. You've probably heard of the "6 degrees of Kevin Bacon". This is where you try and connect any actor with Kevin Bacon in 6 steps or less. So let's try "6 degrees of Invision Community". This is where we try and connect a person with an Invision Community. David Goggins and Invis…
Matt

Matt

2
Matt's Blog

Why I try and avoid the F word in public

I've had this similar conversation dozens of times in the recent past when someone has taken an interest in what I do. Person: So what does Invision Community do? Me: We develop and sell an independent community platform. Person: Oh. Neat. I used to say the F word. But this used to cause some confusion. 'We develop and sell a forum system'. This used to elicit a response simila…
Matt

Matt

18

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Guest Blog

How To Create Value from an Online Community

Online communities shine with the brilliance of humanity. Every day, our communities inspire, evoke, inform, motivate and engage in a hundred different ways.  Every member feels a uniquely individual sense of value from your community.  For too many communities, the strategy revolves around two simple pillars: content and engagement.  You inform. You engage. And you think your job is done.  H…
Joel R

Joel R

1
Matt's Blog

Podcast with Matt: Facebook or Forums?

I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak on the Expert Focus podcast,  hosted by experienced community manager and public speaker, Claire Dowdall. Claire has significant experience in managing and developing strategies for increasing Facebook Group engagement for high profile speakers and entrepreneurs, while my background is with independent communities. This set us up nicely for a l…
Matt

Matt

0
Guest Blog

10 Tips For Converting from vBulletin to Invision Community

Are you a vBulletin admin looking to stay on the leading edge of online communities?  As an IPS client who frequents the Invision Community support forums on a daily basis, I often run across existing or former vBulletin admins looking to migrate to IPS.  In fact, based on my not-so-scientific survey, vBulletin is one of the most popular platforms from where admins migrate. Many of the vBulle…
Joel R

Joel R

3
Guest Blog

How I started my community

I'm only one month in to starting a new community and I've already learned a huge amount. I was a little apprehensive at first but I'm taking things one step at a time and I'm happy with how things are going so far. The points I'm going to raise are working for me but I'm a beginner and running a website of any description is new. Nothing here is guaranteed and I hope to receive comments from…
HelenG

HelenG

1
Product Updates

4.4: Converter updates to make migrating to Invision Community even easier

We want to ensure that converting from your existing community platform to ours is as seamless as possible. While we do have a migration service available where we take care of everything for you, we do also offer a DIY option. We took some time to overhaul the conversion process for those opting to convert using our free tools. Ready to convert? So you've just purchased y…
bfarber

bfarber

7
Matt's Blog

The hidden cost of doing nothing

I'm sure that most reading this blog are running an up-to-date Invision Community and enjoying all the benefits of a modern community platform. Little things that get taken for granted now, like being able to view your community on a mobile phone without pinching and zooming just to read a few posts and having multiple automated tools to deal with community toxicity and spam. However, a …
Matt

Matt

14
Guest Blog

How to beat your competition

The Internet is a fierce battleground for users, clicks, attention, and audience.  Competition surrounds your community from all angles and new threats constantly emerge. The Internet has leveled the playing field for local businesses, solopreneurs, and small organizations which means more people than ever are competing for users.  Online communities are no different, and as companies realize…
Joel R

Joel R

3
Matt's Blog

Don't hide your community away!

One of the first things I do when visiting a site that I know has a community is to try and find it. More often than not, it's hidden away in the footer links or buried in several sub-menus and labelled something relatively obscure like "Fans" or "Support". This is a massive lost opportunity! We all know that social proof is incredibly important when making a purchasing decision. …
Matt

Matt

5
Off-Topic

Team Talk: Your favourite 4.4 feature?

Release parties at Invision Community are a fairly tame affair. You'd think after months of planning, coding and testing we'd want to cut loose and dance the night away. The reality is we send each other a few amusing GIFs in Slack and then wait for support tickets to start appearing while our developers crack their knuckles and prepare for bug reports to be filed. It's a nig…
Matt

Matt

8