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Invision Community Blog

Managing successful online communities

How to deal with negativity and toxicity in your community

The term "flame-wars" was coined way back in the 1970s when computer scientists talking in the first electronic discussion boards noticed that here was "an escalation of critical comments and an increase in the frequency with which people would respond with short negative messages." For anyone that has ventured into the comment section of Youtube, read Twitter for more than a few minutes or f…
Matt

Matt

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Honor and Humiliation: Building Emotional Connection for Community

Emotion is energy in motion. Today’s article is the last element in our Sense of Community series, and it’s also the most powerful.  It allows new communities to win over legacy ones; niche communities to triumph over generic platforms; and impassioned communities to outlast everyone.  It’s also the hardest element to cultivate.  What is it?  According to a survey by psychologist Dr…
Joel R

Joel R

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What are the benefits of a support community?

When your customers buy or use your products, they will have many questions. They may have issues using the product, or they may have requests for future versions based on their needs. Managing and responding to those questions and requests quickly increases conversion, satisfaction and the likelihood or purchasing again. The statistics back this up. There is no doubt tha…
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Matt

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Ideation within Invision Community

Collecting, curating and organising ideas and feedback is a critical part of managing a community for a product. Even though here at Invision Community, we have a relaxed approach to ideation, we do read and review ideas and feature requests that come into us via our support community and via emails and tickets and organise them off-site. If you wanted to add more rigour to your ideati…
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4x4 Growth Hacks 🚀

Are you curious 🤔about ways to boost your engagement that don't require a lot of effort?  Want some shortcuts to set your engagement on fire 🔥?    Check out these 4x4 tips of four growth hacks that you can implement in less than four minutes ⏳ to boost engagement. 1. Add a content block at the bottom of topics.  Sounds upside down 🙃, right?  Most admins add content blocks at the tops of …
Joel R

Joel R

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Rewards & Reinforcement: Delivering Member Greatness in Online Communities

Bad communities promise great things to its members. Good communities offer great things to its members. Great communities fulfill the greatness of its members.  A primary purpose of every community is to fulfill the needs of its members.  A strong community will go beyond the immediate, basic needs and ensure that fulfillment is a positive experience.  By doing so, it builds in positive rewa…
Joel R

Joel R

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4x4 What Do Visitors See When They Visit?

What do visitors see when they visit your online community? And when was the last time you logged out to browse like a visitor?   Check out these 4x4 tips of four items in less than four minutes for the visitor experience: Check your Registration Process, especially any social sign-ins. You may want to increase or reduce security checks.  You may need to fix social logins. And you may …
Joel R

Joel R

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The State of the Internet: Mary Meeker at 2019 Code Conference

Mary Meeker delivered a rapid-fire review at the 2019 Code Conference of her latest Internet Trends Report, widely considered to be one of the most influential and comprehensive reports on Internet trends.  The report covers 11 broad areas from ecommerce to education, data growth to usage, work to immigration, and China.  The report's foreword includes the following statement: Thi…
Joel R

Joel R

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The Power of Influence: Building Trust and Governance in a Community

Communities are bound by a code of conduct that govern user behavior.  Sometimes these rules are explicitly written, such as terms, guidelines, or my personal favorite: “Must Read Before Posting Or Banned!!!” topics. (That’s a joke.  Please don’t ever write a topic like that!)  Sometimes the rules are unwritten, based on evolving behaviors and user-to-user interaction.  No matter the method o…
Joel R

Joel R

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The 3 things your community needs to succeed

A successful community only needs three core elements to flourish and begin producing results. Your community will require some care and effort to flourish, but with the right strategies in place, you'll ensure that the value your community produces continues to increase as time goes by. Let's take a look at the three elements that make for a successful community. Content Content …
Matt

Matt

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Work smarter with 5 of our best time saving features

Have you ever found yourself muttering "there has to be an easier way" when managing your community? If you have, it's likely that you are not the first person to think that. Invision Community has been refined over nearly two decades, and in that time we've received a lot of feedback from clients running very large and busy sites. We love a short cut, especially when it makes our client…
Matt

Matt

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Boundaries & Identity: Building Membership in a Community

Cultivating a strong Sense of Community is a clear goal for community builders.  Develop a strong sense of community, and you’ve built a community experience that sparks a more meaningful and connected community that your members will love.  A strong sense of community means: An integrated community where members feel personally related An impactful community where a member can …
Joel R

Joel R

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Master your community's lifecycle to increase your growth

“Every success story is a tale of constant adaption, revision and change.” – Richard Branson, billionaire and founder of Virgin Group. We all seek success with our Invision Communities. For too many of our communities, however, we yearn for success but we don’t plot the correct navigation to get there. We haphazardly pursue our strategies, trying new ideas and hoping one will stick. It’s time…
Joel R

Joel R

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The incredible power of anonymity when growing your community

We attach a significant amount of personally identifiable data to our social media profiles daily. I regularly use social media to share photos of my kids and holidays. I post my personal thoughts on products I've used and TV shows I've watched. I'm even tagged in location-based check-ins. It's all there in my news feed for anyone to see. I'm not alone. More and more of us live our …
Matt

Matt

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Video Tip: Preventing Spam

Dealing with spam can be an annoying problem for community moderators. It's bad enough that our inboxes get clogged up with it daily. Invision Community comes with several tools designed to mitigate spam, and make it hard for spammers to get a foothold in your community. This short video takes you through several key areas: The Invision Community spam defense system CAPTCHA…
Matt

Matt

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Guest Blog: Discover Activity Streams

Once again, we hand over the reigns of our blog to client and friend to Invision Community Joel for another client view of our community suite. Today @Joel R tackles Activity Streams, and how to make them "your awesome". Activity Streams is one of the best new features of Invision Community 4 with more flexibility and options than ever before.  It can be an amazing and easy way to div…
Matt

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Guest Blog: How to incorporate new features into your community

Today, we're handing over our blog to long time client and friend to Invision Community, Joel R. @Joel R is often found hanging out in our community offering his insight and wisdom when he's not harassing the team in Slack. Over to Joel. Invision Community releases a variety of blockbuster features in every major update, which usually hits once a year.  You may think those updates a…
Matt

Matt

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Gamification for your community

It's 2 am, and my bleary red eyes are fighting sleep. My thumbs are still glued to the Playstation controller as I try and persuade my on-screen avatar to complete the level. If I manage it, I've won another trophy. Many of us have been there. Investing a considerable amount of time into a game just to get to the next level, win a trophy or better yet, complete the entire game. I still r…
Matt

Matt

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Video Tip: ACP Tips and Tricks

Work smarter, not harder is a motto we hear a lot of in our modern age. This is of course great advice. Invision Community's Admin CP is packed full of tools and settings to help you configure your community to your needs. In this short video I show you how you can work smarter in the Admin CP. Dashboard Blocks I show you how create a dashboard perfect for your needs. The dashboar…
Matt

Matt

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Video Tip: Create a homepage in under 5 minutes with Pages

We often get asked how to create a portal-like home page for a community. A homepage has many benefits including: Showing your best content first By using the "Our Picks" blocks, you can display your best content first. This content sets the tone for the site and will encourage engagement across your site. Display multiple areas of the suite Each application has its own feed blo…
Matt

Matt

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How to cultivate a positive community

A positive community is a wonderful thing. It's fun to read and almost irresistible to join. You instantly feel welcomed and quickly make new friends. Carefully managed communities tend to be respectful. Individuals may occasionally argue and disagree, but these are short term incidences that do not affect the community. Is this by chance or by design? Your role as a community leade…
Matt

Matt

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Video Tip: Set up a curated video gallery in 5 minutes with Pages

Pages is one our most flexible applications. We use Pages on this site for our news blog, our release list and our bug tracker. We also use it internally to track customer suggestions, knowledge base articles and more. The most common use for Pages is as a simple articles database. With its built in templates, you can create interesting and engaging pages in just a few minutes. This is h…
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How to successfully convert your platform and breathe new life into your community

Do you have a community but are looking to move to a more modern and feature rich platform? There's a lot of ways Invision Community can breathe new life into your community. With our engagement features, advanced promotion features and mobile ready responsive themes, your members are going to love the changes. Invision Community can power your entire site, from the content management fr…
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Your GDPR questions answered

You've no doubt heard about GDPR by now. It's a very hot topic in many circles. Lots of experts are weighing in on the best approach to take before the May 25th deadline. Which reminds me of my favorite joke: "Do you know a great GDPR expert?” Yes, I do! “Could you send me his email address” No, I'm afraid not. I wrote about how Invision Community can help with your G…
Matt

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How to use Invision Community content in Wordpress in under 5 minutes

If you've already got a Wordpress website, and have recently added an Invision Community, you might want to show recent posts or topics right on your Wordpress site. You might think this involves complex programming and custom themes, but thanks to some Pages magic, it's a very simple task that you can do in under 5 minutes. This very short video walks you through the process. …
Matt

Matt

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