KentT

Let me set some context, before I explain. My site is a 19 year old virtual club for enthusiasts and collectors of a specific brand of antique garden tractors. It includes a significant online library of contributed resources of all types, plus an active Classifieds ads (free) that allows them to buy, sell or trade for free with real folks avoiding Craigslist scammers and hassles ( we have always required users to provide their real name, city, state) or eBay costs. It also supports an aftermarket of reproduction parts. In addition to researching and finding things or asking questions, users can document their collection and their projects in a variety of ways (a custom tractor registry - now using Pages + collections, photo gallery, build log blog, a Show & Tell forum specifically for that, etc.)
We also have a Facebook page and a Facebook group. The page is simply to stake a place and hang a shingle on Facebook - because we are a virtual club, many of the FB tools for a business owner to use on their page simply does not apply - and most imprtantly, because search engines and such penalize me if I don't have one. Consequently that page doesn't see much traffic, and the content is not very dynamic. The Facebook Group is used to "push" key things from my site into Facebook so that users can then share that info with their friends, family, other groups, etc. We share new classified ads, blog updates, new photo gallery items, new registry entries, etc - so that our users who are in Facebook can then share their hobby with their friends, family, etc. My site has over 9000 users, and the FB group has over 1000 members.
We do not actively encourage users to post in that FB group, much less use it for general chit-chat. Similarly, we don't encourage status updates on the club site.  I really don't care what they had for lunch, what their kids/grandkids now look like, or where they went on vacation. But, if they have something significant or meaningful related to their tractor hobby, I want to capture that, catalog/index it, and save it for posterity (rather than it disappear with the latest Photobucket policy change, when MySpace or or other free photo repository fades away, etc.) I want to add that to our knowledge base and repository and make it easily searchable and shareable.
In addition, we have a News and Announcements forum for news about the club, the site, or its software - and we share all topics in it to Facebook. Meanwhile, our moderators also monitor that Facebook group and should someone ask a question there, they respond and if possible provide a link back to the site for more details, resources, etc. 
We try to use Facebook as a means for our users to share info about their hobby with a wider audience, to "market" who we are and what we can provide to a wider audience (especially younger users who live in their phones but may seldom use a computer), and as a way to broadcast news and updates about the site and the club. I don't try to compete head to head with FB, while fully acknowledging that it is a part of many of our users lives, and simply want to facilitate that...
So, things I would like to see are:
1. Ability to Promote to a Group in addition to a Page
2. Ability to auto-promote new content from specific parts of my site, to reduce the workload of moderators manually sharing (or promoting) content, and let them work in a "by exception" mode, similar to how they police the forums.
 3. Ideally, I'd like to see the ability to automatically feed or pull back to my site any Facebook reactions or comments to content that has been shared or promoted there...
 

PLEASE fix Search as promised. I have members now mobilized to upload thousands of PDF files to our Downloads section. But, if we can't search and find them by the short model numbers of the equipment involved (B-210, 3314, etc.) then they are of limited value.
Finish up the new social promotion by allowing us to Promote to a FB Group instead of just a FB page. Finally, make the FB Share reliably pull an image from the body of a Topic being shared. It works fine in some parts of the suite, but not in the forums.
 

Amen +1
Reading through we do a similar thing with our sites where we try to use FB as a feeder to the main site. It doesn't always work, hence the desperate need for the above 3 points.

Let me set some context, before I explain. My site is a 19 year old virtual club for enthusiasts and collectors of a specific brand of antique garden tractors. It includes a significant online library of contributed resources of all types, plus an active Classifieds ads (free) that allows them to buy, sell or trade for free with real folks avoiding Craigslist scammers and hassles ( we have always required users to provide their real name, city, state) or eBay costs. It also supports an aftermarket of reproduction parts. In addition to researching and finding things or asking questions, users can document their collection and their projects in a variety of ways (a custom tractor registry - now using Pages + collections, photo gallery, build log blog, a Show & Tell forum specifically for that, etc.)
We also have a Facebook page and a Facebook group. The page is simply to stake a place and hang a shingle on Facebook - because we are a virtual club, many of the FB tools for a business owner to use on their page simply does not apply - and most imprtantly, because search engines and such penalize me if I don't have one. Consequently that page doesn't see much traffic, and the content is not very dynamic. The Facebook Group is used to "push" key things from my site into Facebook so that users can then share that info with their friends, family, other groups, etc. We share new classified ads, blog updates, new photo gallery items, new registry entries, etc - so that our users who are in Facebook can then share their hobby with their friends, family, etc. My site has over 9000 users, and the FB group has over 1000 members.
We do not actively encourage users to post in that FB group, much less use it for general chit-chat. Similarly, we don't encourage status updates on the club site.  I really don't care what they had for lunch, what their kids/grandkids now look like, or where they went on vacation. But, if they have something significant or meaningful related to their tractor hobby, I want to capture that, catalog/index it, and save it for posterity (rather than it disappear with the latest Photobucket policy change, when MySpace or or other free photo repository fades away, etc.) I want to add that to our knowledge base and repository and make it easily searchable and shareable.
In addition, we have a News and Announcements forum for news about the club, the site, or its software - and we share all topics in it to Facebook. Meanwhile, our moderators also monitor that Facebook group and should someone ask a question there, they respond and if possible provide a link back to the site for more details, resources, etc. 
We try to use Facebook as a means for our users to share info about their hobby with a wider audience, to "market" who we are and what we can provide to a wider audience (especially younger users who live in their phones but may seldom use a computer), and as a way to broadcast news and updates about the site and the club. I don't try to compete head to head with FB, while fully acknowledging that it is a part of many of our users lives, and simply want to facilitate that...
So, things I would like to see are:
1. Ability to Promote to a Group in addition to a Page
2. Ability to auto-promote new content from specific parts of my site, to reduce the workload of moderators manually sharing (or promoting) content, and let them work in a "by exception" mode, similar to how they police the forums.
 3. Ideally, I'd like to see the ability to automatically feed or pull back to my site any Facebook reactions or comments to content that has been shared or promoted there...
 

Let me set some context, before I explain. My site is a 19 year old virtual club for enthusiasts and collectors of a specific brand of antique garden tractors. It includes a significant online library of contributed resources of all types, plus an active Classifieds ads (free) that allows them to buy, sell or trade for free with real folks avoiding Craigslist scammers and hassles ( we have always required users to provide their real name, city, state) or eBay costs. It also supports an aftermarket of reproduction parts. In addition to researching and finding things or asking questions, users can document their collection and their projects in a variety of ways (a custom tractor registry - now using Pages + collections, photo gallery, build log blog, a Show & Tell forum specifically for that, etc.)
We also have a Facebook page and a Facebook group. The page is simply to stake a place and hang a shingle on Facebook - because we are a virtual club, many of the FB tools for a business owner to use on their page simply does not apply - and most imprtantly, because search engines and such penalize me if I don't have one. Consequently that page doesn't see much traffic, and the content is not very dynamic. The Facebook Group is used to "push" key things from my site into Facebook so that users can then share that info with their friends, family, other groups, etc. We share new classified ads, blog updates, new photo gallery items, new registry entries, etc - so that our users who are in Facebook can then share their hobby with their friends, family, etc. My site has over 9000 users, and the FB group has over 1000 members.
We do not actively encourage users to post in that FB group, much less use it for general chit-chat. Similarly, we don't encourage status updates on the club site.  I really don't care what they had for lunch, what their kids/grandkids now look like, or where they went on vacation. But, if they have something significant or meaningful related to their tractor hobby, I want to capture that, catalog/index it, and save it for posterity (rather than it disappear with the latest Photobucket policy change, when MySpace or or other free photo repository fades away, etc.) I want to add that to our knowledge base and repository and make it easily searchable and shareable.
In addition, we have a News and Announcements forum for news about the club, the site, or its software - and we share all topics in it to Facebook. Meanwhile, our moderators also monitor that Facebook group and should someone ask a question there, they respond and if possible provide a link back to the site for more details, resources, etc. 
We try to use Facebook as a means for our users to share info about their hobby with a wider audience, to "market" who we are and what we can provide to a wider audience (especially younger users who live in their phones but may seldom use a computer), and as a way to broadcast news and updates about the site and the club. I don't try to compete head to head with FB, while fully acknowledging that it is a part of many of our users lives, and simply want to facilitate that...
So, things I would like to see are:
1. Ability to Promote to a Group in addition to a Page
2. Ability to auto-promote new content from specific parts of my site, to reduce the workload of moderators manually sharing (or promoting) content, and let them work in a "by exception" mode, similar to how they police the forums.
 3. Ideally, I'd like to see the ability to automatically feed or pull back to my site any Facebook reactions or comments to content that has been shared or promoted there...
 

Let me set some context, before I explain. My site is a 19 year old virtual club for enthusiasts and collectors of a specific brand of antique garden tractors. It includes a significant online library of contributed resources of all types, plus an active Classifieds ads (free) that allows them to buy, sell or trade for free with real folks avoiding Craigslist scammers and hassles ( we have always required users to provide their real name, city, state) or eBay costs. It also supports an aftermarket of reproduction parts. In addition to researching and finding things or asking questions, users can document their collection and their projects in a variety of ways (a custom tractor registry - now using Pages + collections, photo gallery, build log blog, a Show & Tell forum specifically for that, etc.)
We also have a Facebook page and a Facebook group. The page is simply to stake a place and hang a shingle on Facebook - because we are a virtual club, many of the FB tools for a business owner to use on their page simply does not apply - and most imprtantly, because search engines and such penalize me if I don't have one. Consequently that page doesn't see much traffic, and the content is not very dynamic. The Facebook Group is used to "push" key things from my site into Facebook so that users can then share that info with their friends, family, other groups, etc. We share new classified ads, blog updates, new photo gallery items, new registry entries, etc - so that our users who are in Facebook can then share their hobby with their friends, family, etc. My site has over 9000 users, and the FB group has over 1000 members.
We do not actively encourage users to post in that FB group, much less use it for general chit-chat. Similarly, we don't encourage status updates on the club site.  I really don't care what they had for lunch, what their kids/grandkids now look like, or where they went on vacation. But, if they have something significant or meaningful related to their tractor hobby, I want to capture that, catalog/index it, and save it for posterity (rather than it disappear with the latest Photobucket policy change, when MySpace or or other free photo repository fades away, etc.) I want to add that to our knowledge base and repository and make it easily searchable and shareable.
In addition, we have a News and Announcements forum for news about the club, the site, or its software - and we share all topics in it to Facebook. Meanwhile, our moderators also monitor that Facebook group and should someone ask a question there, they respond and if possible provide a link back to the site for more details, resources, etc. 
We try to use Facebook as a means for our users to share info about their hobby with a wider audience, to "market" who we are and what we can provide to a wider audience (especially younger users who live in their phones but may seldom use a computer), and as a way to broadcast news and updates about the site and the club. I don't try to compete head to head with FB, while fully acknowledging that it is a part of many of our users lives, and simply want to facilitate that...
So, things I would like to see are:
1. Ability to Promote to a Group in addition to a Page
2. Ability to auto-promote new content from specific parts of my site, to reduce the workload of moderators manually sharing (or promoting) content, and let them work in a "by exception" mode, similar to how they police the forums.
 3. Ideally, I'd like to see the ability to automatically feed or pull back to my site any Facebook reactions or comments to content that has been shared or promoted there...
 

Let me set some context, before I explain. My site is a 19 year old virtual club for enthusiasts and collectors of a specific brand of antique garden tractors. It includes a significant online library of contributed resources of all types, plus an active Classifieds ads (free) that allows them to buy, sell or trade for free with real folks avoiding Craigslist scammers and hassles ( we have always required users to provide their real name, city, state) or eBay costs. It also supports an aftermarket of reproduction parts. In addition to researching and finding things or asking questions, users can document their collection and their projects in a variety of ways (a custom tractor registry - now using Pages + collections, photo gallery, build log blog, a Show & Tell forum specifically for that, etc.)
We also have a Facebook page and a Facebook group. The page is simply to stake a place and hang a shingle on Facebook - because we are a virtual club, many of the FB tools for a business owner to use on their page simply does not apply - and most imprtantly, because search engines and such penalize me if I don't have one. Consequently that page doesn't see much traffic, and the content is not very dynamic. The Facebook Group is used to "push" key things from my site into Facebook so that users can then share that info with their friends, family, other groups, etc. We share new classified ads, blog updates, new photo gallery items, new registry entries, etc - so that our users who are in Facebook can then share their hobby with their friends, family, etc. My site has over 9000 users, and the FB group has over 1000 members.
We do not actively encourage users to post in that FB group, much less use it for general chit-chat. Similarly, we don't encourage status updates on the club site.  I really don't care what they had for lunch, what their kids/grandkids now look like, or where they went on vacation. But, if they have something significant or meaningful related to their tractor hobby, I want to capture that, catalog/index it, and save it for posterity (rather than it disappear with the latest Photobucket policy change, when MySpace or or other free photo repository fades away, etc.) I want to add that to our knowledge base and repository and make it easily searchable and shareable.
In addition, we have a News and Announcements forum for news about the club, the site, or its software - and we share all topics in it to Facebook. Meanwhile, our moderators also monitor that Facebook group and should someone ask a question there, they respond and if possible provide a link back to the site for more details, resources, etc. 
We try to use Facebook as a means for our users to share info about their hobby with a wider audience, to "market" who we are and what we can provide to a wider audience (especially younger users who live in their phones but may seldom use a computer), and as a way to broadcast news and updates about the site and the club. I don't try to compete head to head with FB, while fully acknowledging that it is a part of many of our users lives, and simply want to facilitate that...
So, things I would like to see are:
1. Ability to Promote to a Group in addition to a Page
2. Ability to auto-promote new content from specific parts of my site, to reduce the workload of moderators manually sharing (or promoting) content, and let them work in a "by exception" mode, similar to how they police the forums.
 3. Ideally, I'd like to see the ability to automatically feed or pull back to my site any Facebook reactions or comments to content that has been shared or promoted there...
 

Let me set some context, before I explain. My site is a 19 year old virtual club for enthusiasts and collectors of a specific brand of antique garden tractors. It includes a significant online library of contributed resources of all types, plus an active Classifieds ads (free) that allows them to buy, sell or trade for free with real folks avoiding Craigslist scammers and hassles ( we have always required users to provide their real name, city, state) or eBay costs. It also supports an aftermarket of reproduction parts. In addition to researching and finding things or asking questions, users can document their collection and their projects in a variety of ways (a custom tractor registry - now using Pages + collections, photo gallery, build log blog, a Show & Tell forum specifically for that, etc.)
We also have a Facebook page and a Facebook group. The page is simply to stake a place and hang a shingle on Facebook - because we are a virtual club, many of the FB tools for a business owner to use on their page simply does not apply - and most imprtantly, because search engines and such penalize me if I don't have one. Consequently that page doesn't see much traffic, and the content is not very dynamic. The Facebook Group is used to "push" key things from my site into Facebook so that users can then share that info with their friends, family, other groups, etc. We share new classified ads, blog updates, new photo gallery items, new registry entries, etc - so that our users who are in Facebook can then share their hobby with their friends, family, etc. My site has over 9000 users, and the FB group has over 1000 members.
We do not actively encourage users to post in that FB group, much less use it for general chit-chat. Similarly, we don't encourage status updates on the club site.  I really don't care what they had for lunch, what their kids/grandkids now look like, or where they went on vacation. But, if they have something significant or meaningful related to their tractor hobby, I want to capture that, catalog/index it, and save it for posterity (rather than it disappear with the latest Photobucket policy change, when MySpace or or other free photo repository fades away, etc.) I want to add that to our knowledge base and repository and make it easily searchable and shareable.
In addition, we have a News and Announcements forum for news about the club, the site, or its software - and we share all topics in it to Facebook. Meanwhile, our moderators also monitor that Facebook group and should someone ask a question there, they respond and if possible provide a link back to the site for more details, resources, etc. 
We try to use Facebook as a means for our users to share info about their hobby with a wider audience, to "market" who we are and what we can provide to a wider audience (especially younger users who live in their phones but may seldom use a computer), and as a way to broadcast news and updates about the site and the club. I don't try to compete head to head with FB, while fully acknowledging that it is a part of many of our users lives, and simply want to facilitate that...
So, things I would like to see are:
1. Ability to Promote to a Group in addition to a Page
2. Ability to auto-promote new content from specific parts of my site, to reduce the workload of moderators manually sharing (or promoting) content, and let them work in a "by exception" mode, similar to how they police the forums.
 3. Ideally, I'd like to see the ability to automatically feed or pull back to my site any Facebook reactions or comments to content that has been shared or promoted there...
 

Let me set some context, before I explain. My site is a 19 year old virtual club for enthusiasts and collectors of a specific brand of antique garden tractors. It includes a significant online library of contributed resources of all types, plus an active Classifieds ads (free) that allows them to buy, sell or trade for free with real folks avoiding Craigslist scammers and hassles ( we have always required users to provide their real name, city, state) or eBay costs. It also supports an aftermarket of reproduction parts. In addition to researching and finding things or asking questions, users can document their collection and their projects in a variety of ways (a custom tractor registry - now using Pages + collections, photo gallery, build log blog, a Show & Tell forum specifically for that, etc.)
We also have a Facebook page and a Facebook group. The page is simply to stake a place and hang a shingle on Facebook - because we are a virtual club, many of the FB tools for a business owner to use on their page simply does not apply - and most imprtantly, because search engines and such penalize me if I don't have one. Consequently that page doesn't see much traffic, and the content is not very dynamic. The Facebook Group is used to "push" key things from my site into Facebook so that users can then share that info with their friends, family, other groups, etc. We share new classified ads, blog updates, new photo gallery items, new registry entries, etc - so that our users who are in Facebook can then share their hobby with their friends, family, etc. My site has over 9000 users, and the FB group has over 1000 members.
We do not actively encourage users to post in that FB group, much less use it for general chit-chat. Similarly, we don't encourage status updates on the club site.  I really don't care what they had for lunch, what their kids/grandkids now look like, or where they went on vacation. But, if they have something significant or meaningful related to their tractor hobby, I want to capture that, catalog/index it, and save it for posterity (rather than it disappear with the latest Photobucket policy change, when MySpace or or other free photo repository fades away, etc.) I want to add that to our knowledge base and repository and make it easily searchable and shareable.
In addition, we have a News and Announcements forum for news about the club, the site, or its software - and we share all topics in it to Facebook. Meanwhile, our moderators also monitor that Facebook group and should someone ask a question there, they respond and if possible provide a link back to the site for more details, resources, etc. 
We try to use Facebook as a means for our users to share info about their hobby with a wider audience, to "market" who we are and what we can provide to a wider audience (especially younger users who live in their phones but may seldom use a computer), and as a way to broadcast news and updates about the site and the club. I don't try to compete head to head with FB, while fully acknowledging that it is a part of many of our users lives, and simply want to facilitate that...
So, things I would like to see are:
1. Ability to Promote to a Group in addition to a Page
2. Ability to auto-promote new content from specific parts of my site, to reduce the workload of moderators manually sharing (or promoting) content, and let them work in a "by exception" mode, similar to how they police the forums.
 3. Ideally, I'd like to see the ability to automatically feed or pull back to my site any Facebook reactions or comments to content that has been shared or promoted there...
 

We use Sharing to our corresponding Facebook.Group as a method of getting new members. It drives a lot of traffic to the site, and many then Sign Up for broader access. The last snapshot I took, 12% of our new traffic was coming from Facebook.
That is why I was so disappointed not to be able to Promote to a Facebook Group....

We use Sharing to our corresponding Facebook.Group as a method of getting new members. It drives a lot of traffic to the site, and many then Sign Up for broader access. The last snapshot I took, 12% of our new traffic was coming from Facebook.
That is why I was so disappointed not to be able to Promote to a Facebook Group....

PLEASE fix Search as promised. I have members now mobilized to upload thousands of PDF files to our Downloads section. But, if we can't search and find them by the short model numbers of the equipment involved (B-210, 3314, etc.) then they are of limited value.
Finish up the new social promotion by allowing us to Promote to a FB Group instead of just a FB page. Finally, make the FB Share reliably pull an image from the body of a Topic being shared. It works fine in some parts of the suite, but not in the forums.
 

I'm here all day.

4.2.6

We have been working on that: https://invisioncommunity.com/search/?&q=B-210

A question -- is there any way on the IPS side to specify and store exactly where on Facebook the content will be shared - a default value?  As it works today, each time I click the FB icon, I must first select the group or page that the content will be shared to, else it goes to my own Timeline.  Note that my site has both a corresponding FB page and a FB group (in addition to my own personal Timeline).
I'd like to set the default share to go to the corresponding FB group to save this additional step each time.... This is even more important if things are to be fed programmatically...

A question -- is there any way on the IPS side to specify and store exactly where on Facebook the content will be shared - a default value?  As it works today, each time I click the FB icon, I must first select the group or page that the content will be shared to, else it goes to my own Timeline.  Note that my site has both a corresponding FB page and a FB group (in addition to my own personal Timeline).
I'd like to set the default share to go to the corresponding FB group to save this additional step each time.... This is even more important if things are to be fed programmatically...

Thank God.  
Some much needed changes to Gallery.

Agree.  I have groups and corresponding forums now for admins/moderators and committees who run the competitions.  It would be nice to be able to move them into clubs easily...
Since my site is already dedicated to a club, I've just proposed creating local geographic chapters -- and am soliciting feedback on that idea....

I never stated that IPS include this request - which by the way, that's all it was - immediately into their release. I would appreciate it if you never put words into my mouth again. (Fun Joel would like to remind everyone that he can make up plenty of words for himself juuuust fine ).
With that said, getting the job done is different than getting a great job done better.  I'm not satisfied with complacency, which is why I always encourage IPS to aspire to better and greater things.  If some clients are happy with what IPS offers, then great! There are other clients, however, who would like to continue to  encourage IPS to innovate and push out new features and to consider new possibilities and that as clients we should continue to provide feedback so they can iterate and improve.  
 
 

Agree.  I have groups and corresponding forums now for admins/moderators and committees who run the competitions.  It would be nice to be able to move them into clubs easily...
Since my site is already dedicated to a club, I've just proposed creating local geographic chapters -- and am soliciting feedback on that idea....

Agree.  I have groups and corresponding forums now for admins/moderators and committees who run the competitions.  It would be nice to be able to move them into clubs easily...
Since my site is already dedicated to a club, I've just proposed creating local geographic chapters -- and am soliciting feedback on that idea....

Can I move all members of group A to club A? As of now we have group functionality but it would be very nice to have some kind of cross moving of members from groups to club directly through ACP. - Thanks

1.  We can promote any content including those where guests don't have permissions, correct?  
2.  Photo of the block?  Both main content area and sidebar.
3.  I second the suggestion by @Real Hal9000 but with a more detailed suggestion: a setting in a category to automatically turn ON promotions for all new content.  (The author of the content item can still manually disable the promotion; and admins can still delete the promotion from the ACP.  All this does is automatically queue the promotions).  This automates the process even more for busy community managers like @Charles.  Keepin' it real for you Charles.
4.  Is Matt our new SEO Guru?? I can see him doing bicep curls as he draws nonsensical SEO diagrams:

Teach us this Matt.  
5.  "Our Picks" index page - any way to remove the titles and subtitle?  This can be a very compelling and dynamic homepage a la Pinterest once you add some blocks.   
6.  Safe to assume that content items on Our Picks index will follow permissions?  For example, members-only content items won't show to visitors?  
7.  Suggestion: allow Community Moderators / Admins to promote directly from the Activity Stream.  This will help speed up the promotion process 
8.  Suggestion: When re-promoting content (thank you Rikki for confirming), I think it would be beneficial to keep a history of prior promotions.  
9.  How many content items do we show on Our Picks index?  When do they fall off?  

Sometimes development isn't about creating something nobody has ever seen, but rather improving on existing concepts and providing a robust, built-in solution.