Matt

Social media promotion should be a part of any marketing strategy. Curating interesting content from your community and sharing to social media channels like Facebook and Twitter is a great way to drive traffic to your site. Invision Community 4.2 introduced Social Media Promotions to allow this. You hit the promote button, fill out the text to share with each service, click which photos to include and schedule the promotion or send it immediately. We use this feature almost every single day to share highlights to our Invision Community Facebook page and Twitter. This feature has had a significant impact in attracting visitors to our blog. This is now a core part of our marketing strategy. So what's new in Invision Community 4.3? Facebook Groups and Pages A popular feature request was to allow sharing to Facebook groups that you are an administrator of, as well as Pages you own. Not only that, but we now allow you to share to many places at once. When setting up Facebook, you can choose which Facebook properties to be used when promoting. When sharing content, you can choose where to share it to right on the dialog. Here you can see that we're sharing to two of three possible places. "It's a secret" is a Facebook Group (which makes it a pretty poor secret). The "Lindy Throgmartin Fan Club" is my favourite page on all of Facebook. What it lacks in members, it makes up for in enthusiasm. You may also notice that the Facebook box is empty. Facebook have very strict guidelines on sharing content. They prefer that you do not auto-populate the content. You can always access the item's original content on the promote dialog, so you can refer to it. Setting a custom page title When you share to social media channels, you also have the opportunity to add to the 'Our Picks' page. We've made it possible to add a custom title for the Our Picks page so you don't have to use the content item title, although this is still the default. Editing an Our Pick When editing an item shared to 'Our Picks', you now have the option of editing all the data, including the title and the images attached. The Our Picks page showing the custom title Thanks to your feedback, we saw several places that we can improve this already popular feature. We hope you enjoy these changes which makes your social promotion strategy even easier to execute. I know we'll be making good use of them!

What an exciting month we've had! The big news is that it's all systems go on Invision Community 4.3, our big update to our apps. We've already talked about Automatic Community Moderation, Emoji, Sign in from other sites using OAuth, blog updates, Scaleable search and interface improvements, Apple Pay (and more) support, Paid club memberships, and other club improvements and massive gallery updates. Our team take a short breather to discuss their hidden talents, including the ability to solve a Rubik's cube in under two minutes. In our community management series, we look at how you can brand your Invision Community in just a few minutes without knowing how to code. This month's featured articles are: You can see our full newsletter here.

We're a cool bunch here at Invision Community. You'll see us around answering support tickets, posting in our community and writing cool new features and hilarious blogs. But, you won't see what we get up to in our spare time. This month, we asked the question "What is your secret talent?" To which Andy replied "I can't tell you, it's a secret" making me rephrase the question immediately. Without further ado, lets dive in. Andy Millne (Developer and owner of quick comebacks) I can fly a plane, a desire that started as a child being allowed to occasionally take the controls of my parent’s light aircraft. This was then rekindled when the same aircraft fell into disrepair and was in need of restoration and I had the disposable income to take lessons. Unfortunately this is a very expensive hobby and not really one I can still justify though I occasionally fly with friends when possible. I can also fly model planes and helicopters but I’m almost as talented at crashing them as I am flying them. Luckily that skill hasn’t transferred to the real thing. Editor: Andy lives in a different league to the rest of us. Mark Wade (VIP Developer and owner of scathing put-downs) I can solve a Rubik's cube in under two minutes. Editor: Pfft. Depending on how well the stickers are adhered, I can solve one in under a minute. Brandon Farber (Developer and owner of impressive tools) I don't know if I'd call it a talent, but I enjoy woodworking when I have time. I built a swinging day bed for my wife out of a couple of pallets and some misc wood and hardware, I screened in my back patio last year, I built a coffin for a Halloween party, and I built a desk two days before Christmas for my daughter as some recent examples. Right now I'm in the middle of building some planter boxes for our front porch. Editor: I made an ash tray for my mum in school once. She loved it, even though she has never once smoked. Desk v1.0 Daniel (Developer, T2 Support and Banksy protege) My secret is art. I used to paint art in the streets of Vienna in summer. Editor: If Daniel needs to work the streets to make ends meet, we should probably give him a pay rise. Daniel painting One of Daniel's creations Jennifer (Designer and owner of cool costumes) I do custom cosplay for myself and my family and I like to make digital space scenes in photoshop. Batman was not created by Jennifer Editor: Our legal department would like to point out that Batman was co-created by Bob Kane. Ryan (Developer and owner of short hair) I have an old one I can't really do anymore - I used to be able to do a pretty close Donald Duck impression. I've forgotten how to do it properly, though. Editor: Interesting thing to share. Ryan has many talents. He can play guitar and bass. He looks a bit like Ethan Hawke. Yet he chose to share the fact he can do a Donald Duck impression. Marc (Support and owner of things on wheels) I'm very good on skates (quad skates, not this inline stuff people do now). Me and my cousin used to do freestyle speed skating and half pipe. Stopped doing so once I got to an age whereby I was breaking things more than bouncing. Something I miss doing, so much so that I still have my skates, even though I haven't been on them in about 20 years. Editor: This is probably not Marc. That's enough from us. To be honest we were all blown away when we learned that Daniel was a secret street artist and he paints amazing pictures. We'd love to hear what your hidden talents are. Let us know below!

One of the advantages of running your own community is that you get to control the branding. Branding is important as it defines and re-enforces your customer's experience. Branding also promotes recognition, it sets you apart from your competition and it provides motivation and direction for your staff. Invision Community has many built in tools to change the look and feel of the community. If you are a savvy coder, you can dive right into the HTML and CSS templates to create truly unique themes. You might also look at an off-the-shelf theme from our marketplace. There are some great themes you can use as a base for your branding. Easy Mode Editor One tool that is often overlooked is the Easy Mode Editor. It's a great way to make some simple changes to reflect your brand's identity. It offers a great deal of control, but I want to show you how you can brand your community in just a few short minutes without knowing a line of code. The presentation below takes you through creating a new Easy Mode theme, and using the Easy Mode Editor on the front end to dynamically change the colours. You'll also learn how to upload your logo. How to brand your community presentation Email Branding Another area to consider is outgoing emails. Invision Community leverages emails for notifications, as well as the bulk email system in the Admin CP. These emails look fine by default, but adding your logo and primary color re-enforces your branding. The presentation below shows you the few simple steps needed to brand your emails. How to brand your emails presentation As you can see, Invision Community offers simple tools to change the look of your community without knowing how to code. We hope you find this useful. If you have any questions, please let us know below!

Good news! We've taken Invision Community's Blog app by the scruff of the neck and dragged it into 2018! There has been a growing trend for imagery to play a very important part of a blog entry. This update reflects that. Introducing Grid View We have added a new view that shows your blog entries as cards with space for a cover photo. We've very visual creatures, and a good photograph can entice readers into your blogs to read more. As you would expect, you can disable this mode from the Admin CP for purists that prefer the traditional list format. For those who's sense of adventure runs deep, the new grid mode allows you to show a list of latest blog entries as the blog home page. This puts valuable and engaging content right in front of your audience. This list view persists when you view a blog's entries giving a consistent feel. Viewing an entry We've given the blog entry page a little make-over by featuring the cover photo above the content. The slimmed down blog details bar allows your audience to focus on the content. Default Cover Photos You may have spotted that entries without a cover photo have a rather fetching geometric pattern in different colors. This is a new micro-feature of Invision Community 4.3. Currently, if you do not have a cover photo on a blog, profile or event, the bar is a rather sad shade of black. The new default cover photo feature makes it much more cheerful. Here's what a profile looks like. Much better. Here's a few technical details for those that love to know all the things. The grid view feature can be turned off in the ACP (but doing so will make me very sad) You can choose the default home page view: Latest Entries or List of Blogs. You can still view a list of blogs when you're on the latest entries page. This choice is stored in a little cookie (GDPR friendly, it doesn't contain any identifying data) so navigating back gets you the last view you chose. Let us know what you think! We love it, and hope you do too.

One huge benefit of running your own Invision Community is the moderation tools. Out of the box, Invision Community allows you to turn members into moderators. Better still, you can define what these moderators have permission to do. Part of this moderation suite is the report system. The report system allows your members to flag posts that need a moderator's attention. There comes a time when your community is so successful that it can be a little tough to keep up with all the content and reports. Community Moderation This new feature leverages your member reports to automatically remove objectionable content from public view. You as the admin will define thresholds for the content. For example, you may say that to hide content, a post needs 5 reports. This reduces the workload for your moderators and enables you to crowd source moderation. Let's take a look at this feature in a little more detail. Reporting Content When a member reports a piece of content, they now have the option to set a type, such as "Spam" or "Offensive". These options can count towards the threshold. Once the threshold has been passed the item is hidden. The threshold can be set up by creating rules in the Admin CP. Admin Set Up At its heart of the system are the rules. You can create custom rules in the Admin CP to determine the thresholds. For example, you may decide that: A member with less than 10 posts only needs 5 reports to hide the content. But you may want to give more experienced members a higher threshold as there is more trust. You simply add a new rule: A member who joined over a year ago with over 500 posts needs 10 reports to hide content. You can do that easily with the rules system as it will scan them all and pick the one most suitable for this member. It's as simple as that. Notifications Once an item has received enough reports to match the threshold, it is automatically hidden from view. A notification is sent to all moderators who opt in for notifications. This notification shows inline in the notifications center. It can also optionally be sent via email for those who want to know without checking the site. Restoring the content Of course, a moderator may decide that the content is fine and un-hide it. Once a piece of content has been un-hidden, automatic moderation will not hide it again. Report Types Depending on your community, the default types may not be suitable or relevant. You may also want to set up other report types. You can do this via the Admin CP. Preventing Abuse Your first thought may be that a single member can report a single item multiple times to force content to be hidden. The system will only count a unique member as one point towards the threshold. This means a single member can report an item 5 times, but they are only counted once towards the threshold. You can also set a time limit between reporting the same item. This will prevent a member reporting a single item multiple times in succession. Of course, the member can delete their report if it was in error. Report Center The Report Center is the hub for all reported content. Invision Community 4.3 adds a filter to view a specific report type. The reports themselves also show the type of report. We hope that this new feature will be a huge help and time saver for you and your moderators. We'd love to hear your thoughts, please let us know what you think and if you have any questions.

When I started creating communities close to two decades ago, getting new members was easy. All you had to do was put up a script, create some "Chat here" forums and email your friends. It didn't take long for word to spread and you had a healthy forum buzzing with conversation. Now, it's different. The internet is a crowded space. No matter what your niche, you will be competing with other businesses for visitors. You need a solid strategy to succeed, and I want to help you. Before you open the doors to your new community, consider the following questions. What is your vision? Your community must have a strong reason to attract visitors. Write down your community's purpose and bullet point how you will achieve it. When you configure and set up your community, keep asking yourself "does this fit my vision". For example. Consider a fitness professional who is launching a community. The vision is to educate your audience on good nutrition and exercise. You then have subscription based packages for one-to-one coaching. This is a very focused vision. You will create one or two forums for the public areas. You will leverage clubs for the paid memberships. You wouldn't create forums for non-fitness areas such as technology or movies. You will strip the complexity back to encourage interaction as your target market may not be very technical. What is your voice? You will lead your community and set the tone. If you are handling investment portfolios then you will want the tone to be friendly, but professional. If you are creating a forum for marathon runners, you'd want to use a lot of running "lingo" and be informal and fun. Consider your target audience. Think about how they would like to be treated. How would they like your interactions to be? Once you have found your voice, keep it consistent. Your members will follow your lead and keep your community positive. How are you going to onboard new members? If you want people to join in with your new community, you need to hold their hand and show them why they are important to you. They will want to feel comfortable and valued in your community. When you are starting out, take the time to welcome each new member and point them to any welcome guides you may have. You can create and pin a topic that explains how to get started. When a new member joins, link them to that topic. You should also use profile completion to politely enforce the use of a user photo. A photo personalises a user's profile and reminds that you are speaking to a human! Remind them to set up email notifications so they won't miss any exciting updates or new topics. What is your promotion strategy? No matter how great your content is, it needs promoting. There are several great ways to do this. You can create a monthly email sent to all members. You can outline any important topics or articles. You can list upcoming events. You can promote your articles to Facebook and Twitter. Make the headlines interesting to encourage clicks into your content. By driving traffic back to your site, you will increase your membership. How often are you going to contribute to your own community? In the early days of your new community, you will have to be very active. You will want to welcome new members and keep conversations alive. You will be creating new conversations for others to contribute in. You must budget time for this and be consistent. Show up every day. I recommend setting aside two blocks of 30 minutes each day. Use that time to reply to any new topics and to kick off a few of your own. Visit early in the morning, and again in the evening. How are you going to reward active members? Once you community gets going, some individuals will stand out as leaders. These leaders are well respected and encourage others to take part. Create a special member group with better privileges such as increased storage space, or the ability to create post signatures. Give them a special badge and member title. It will show that you respect and appreciate their contributions. Having a small number of community leaders will save you time. They will always have their fingers on the pulse and can feedback any issues before they develop into something serious. Are you going to funnel discussion into your community? Your community is one part of your site. If you have pages and articles up elsewhere, I recommend you encourage posting in the forums. At the end of each article, link to a related forum and ask for their thoughts. People love sharing their thoughts and opinions. Summary Taking the time to create a strategy will pay dividends later. Getting into a professional and focused mindset will make you stand out from the crowd. Knowing the exact purpose of your community and how to execute it is key for success. Thinking about the questions posed above is a great start. It should make you think about your target audience and how to serve them. It may even create more questions. I'd love to help you answer them. Let me know what your plans are for your community.

As we make our final commits, merge in the last of our branches and wait for Charles to move more tasks to the development list, we pause to reflect on our year together as a company. Pour some egg nog, grab some snacks and lets take a look at our journey this year. Our year in numbers In 2017 we made 72 Invision Community releases, 6584 code commits, read 157,203 customer replies and made an average of 177 staff replies to tickets per day. Our year in dates We were certainly busy this year. We launched Invision Community 4.2, started work on Invision Community 4.3, started two new blog series and a newsletter. Lets take a look at the key dates. March 10th We started talking about our upcoming release, Invision Community 4.2 which saw us drop "Invision Power Services" in favour of the sleeker and less awkward "Invision Community". March 28 - 30th During our series of blogs on 4.2, we launch a triple whammy of blog entries outlining reactions, clubs and social media promotions. Three new tent-pole features that drove 4.2 to be our most successful release. July 19th We release Invision Community 4.2 to deafening applause (most of it was our own, but it still counts). We give the development team a 15 minute break and then drop the 4.3 task list internally. September 15th We start a new blog series "Team Talk". The idea is to show that we're not a bunch of code writing robots, but we're real people with personalities, hopes and dreams. So far, it's proved that we're mostly a bunch of code writing robots without personalities. The irony. October 18th Not content to just talk about silly things in Team Talk, we launched our new long form blog series "Community Management". Here we give our many years of community building insight to help you become successful in running your communities. We've tackled a number of subjects from SEO to security so far with many more planned for 2018. October 30th Our development team have been busy working on Invision Community 4.3 and we announce it to the world. And being the huge tease we are, we've said nothing since. Rest assured, we've got a lot done and its shaping up to be another great release. We'll be talking about it in more detail next year. It's all about you Of course, we couldn't finish without saying a massive THANK YOU to all our customers. We are so lucky to do something we love for a living and that is only possible because you choose to use us to build your community. We are committed to keep moving forward to ensure that we serve you in the best way possible. We'll keep innovating to give you the tools you need to succeed and we'll keep posting blogs packed full of tips and advice. Here's to 2018 and all the adventures it brings.

The Christmas lights are twinkling, the mince pies baked and the egg nog has been poured. With Christmas just around the corner, we turn our thoughts to what 2018 may bring. Marc Stridgen (Tech support and kettlebell enthusiast) I'm just looking forward to 2018 being less of a mixed year, as 2017 has been a bit of a bad one on the side of family, yet good with regards work and personal achievements. So here goes for my 2018: Looking forward to 4.3 and beyond. 4.2 I feel has been a great release for people, and will be nice to expand on the 4.x platform over the next year. Getting my wife and daughter to a happier place in life. Various things this year have meant they really haven't been. I have 3 events so far this year that I'm attending. 1 x 5k obstacle course, 1 x 10k obstacle course, and a 60 mile ride from Manchester to Blackpool. I always look forward to these, as its always a good sense of achievement when they are done, and a good excuse to get that little more in shape. Dev, dev, dev!! Whilst I am currently tier 1 support here at IPS, I'm actually a developer by trade. Currently I write .NET windows applications/services, and vast experience with TSQL. My aim this year is to update my own skillsets to web based development, and mysql. Something I have already started to do, but I'm going to be pushing myself more on over the coming year. It's fun to learn new things! (Editor: Marc is a highly skilled SQL specialist. Even Wade has been known to ask Marc for advice) Ryan Ashbrook (Developer, T3 specialist and guitar collector) My life is actually pretty boring (Editor: nope, it's not) - I don't have a whole lot planned going into 2018, though I am looking forward to my 30th birthday in March. People think I'm weird for that. I plan on getting back into music, though, as I've actually stopped playing throughout all of 2017 (aside from a few rare instances here and there), so it'll be nice to pick that up again as a healthy hobby. I also wouldn't mind traveling more, and make a return trip to New Hampshire with my friends, which I haven't done in four-ish years now. For IPS, I'm looking forward to seeing how 4.3 evolves and matures, as well as the new Community in the Cloud infrastructure. Mark Wade (Senior Developer and praise withholder) Obviously 4.3 and onwards ? I have some cool stuff (at least by my standards) planned, including weekends in Edinburgh and Berlin at the beginning of the year, and Country To Country Festival at the O2 in March ? and, best of all... Shania Twain at the O2 in October ? Prides! ?️‍? This year I only did Manchester... a terrible effort. I need to get at least 2 in in 2018 New TV seasons, especially Black Mirror and GBBO. (Editor: That's Great British Bake Off, the most British television show on the planet. People make cakes and then discuss cakes while drinking tea) Brandon Farber (Developer) For 2018 I'm most looking forward to: Watching my beautiful baby daughter grow. Even with 6 kids, the baby phase is always such a special and enjoyable time. Wrapping up some various challenges in real life that are finally coming to an end. Watching my eldest son start college in the fall (UNC most likely) Taking one big family vacation. We're hoping Disney World but we'll wait and see what's in store as the year gets going. Probably the cutest pictures you'll see today. Stuart Silvester (Developer and property mogul) I'm looking forward to 2018 being a better all around year for my close family, 2017 wasn't the best. I'm definitely looking forward to taking some more trips abroad, most like back to Italy and Madeira (Where my Wife and I spent Christmas 2016). I'm also looking forward to hopefully finding some spare time to work on other things such as renovating my home and putting my classic car back on the road. Learning new things is always useful, I've been wanting to start working on something such as an App or Node.JS (I've used it a little in the past, but not a lot), the issue however is the lack of spare time this year. Mark Higgins (Tech Support and part-time Phil) For 2018, I am hoping for an early warm Spring, then a mild Summer. Also hopeful that I can get my pop-up camper fixed so I can have a relaxing vacation in the Fall somewhere "up north" in one of our fantastic State Parks. That, and good health for me and my relatives. (Editor's Tip: if you hear banjo music, get in your car and get out of there) Jennifer Merriman (Designer and owner of the only pink avatar in chat) What do I have to look forward to in 2018? Well this one was difficult because I prefer to live pretty spontaneously. However, I thought about the things in my life that I know will transpire this year. My youngest child will turn 10 and my eldest 13... I'm terrified but excited to see them as they grow more independent. Loosening up the mom reigns by letting my kids start to do things a little more out of my control more regularly. A few million new movies like Aquaman, Jurassic World, Deadpool 2 and Incredibles 2. Otherwise just improved situations for myself and those around me. Both health and whatever else needs improved upon. Daniel Fatkic (Developer and owner of a store with sauna) 2018 is going to be a very busy year with my 3 jobs ( IPS, Dad and Handyman renovating a lot in the house) where I look forward in getting better in all 3 of them. Right now I'm working on my new home-office which will hopefully be finished soon, in spring I want to start the work on the outdoor area and create a patio and a rooftop terrace and the next winter project is the gym/spa area which won't leave much spare time or money for anything else. So what I really really look forward to is 2019 where I can then finally relax and enjoy the stuff which was built in 2018. (Editor: If you're wondering where your spare money went, look at your two LG 27" 5K monitors) Rhett Buck (Hosting expert who needs a ladder to get into his car) I'm looking forward to some time off and a trip to Texas with just the wife and I, top down, no phones, and a few days on the road to get there via Las Vegas, Arizona and a few other stops along the way. Spending a few days with friends relaxing watching MotoGP in Austin Texas, then a few days of relaxing on the open road on the way home. We had planned to go last year, but due to nasty weather, torrential rains, and flooding locally, we were displaced for a couple weeks which ruined our plans. Andy Millne (Developer and international man of mystery) Continued learning mostly. I’m looking forward to further improving my basic Italian language knowledge that I started taking a lot more seriously (It’s not just about waving your arms around). I would also like to fit in some more travel and to visit some old friends I haven’t seen in a while. There’s still so much of the world left to see though! Where to start? On an IPS related theme, I’m of course looking forward to 4.3 and seeing new features we’ve been working on released into the wild, and the stuff that hasn’t even been dreamt of yet. Matt Mecham (Senior Developer, social media stuff and object of ridicule) I'm really looking forward to 2018, personally and professionally. I'm really excited about launching Invision Community 4.3 which is shaping up to build on the great foundation that 4.2 built and add some cool functionality. (Editor: yes, that's enough of the sales pitch, people want to read about the team). As a dad of two, I enjoy watching my kids grow. My nine year old is becoming more independent and my two year old is getting more confident with speech. I love watching them grow up. We've also booked to take them to Disneyland in Paris in April which we're all looking forward to. Disneyland Paris. Like the ones in America but colder and nearer to the UK. We would love to hear what you're looking forward to in 2018. Let us know in the comments below!

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation (EU 2016/679) that is intended to strengthen and unify data protection for EU residents from 25th May 2018. How can Invision Community help? While Invision Community enables you to collect and store information, it's important to note that you as the site owner are the data controller. If your site can collect data from EU citizens, then we recommend that you research your responsibilities. We have introduced several new tools in Invision Community 4.2.7 to help you with compliance, and we'll run through them and the relevant sections of the regulation in this blog. Individual Rights (More information) Right to be informed Invision Community has an area for you to edit your own privacy policy. This is found in the Admin CP > Settings > Terms & Privacy Policy. Guidance on what the policy should contain can be found here. Right to erasure (More information) Invision Community allows you to delete a member from the Admin CP. If the member has left posts or comments on your community, you can elect to delete the content, or keep it but remove the author's details thereby making the content anonymous. Lawful bases for processing (More information) Consent (More information) Invision Community now features a setting to not automatically opt in to administrator emails such as those sent by the bulk email system often used for newsletters when registering a new account on your community. This feature is found in the ACP > Members > Registration Settings Part of the consent regulation is to record when consent was given. The consent to opt-in for administrator emails such as bulk emails sent via the Admin CP is recorded at registration, and each time they change the setting. This record can be found in the member history log when viewing a member in the Admin CP. If you change the Terms & Conditions, or the Privacy Policy, you can request that members accept these changes when they next log in thus giving their consent for those changes. Cookies (More information) Invision Community stores a small amount of data in cookies. These are used to authorize you when you re-visit a community. Other cookies are used to provide a service at the user's request, such as changing a theme or using Commerce's cart. We have added additional features for Invision Community 4.2.7 to permit acknolwedgement that cookies will be set, and a brief page outlining the types of cookies that are set. Invision Community has a feature that shows a small message to new visitors to the community. This is found in the Admin CP > Terms & Privacy Policy page. We have pre-configured a cookie acknowledgement message using the short-tags {cookies}. This will display as follows: This links to a new page showing brief information about the types of cookies that Invision Community stores. Although at the time of writing this blog entry, the regulation states that there is no exact information that you need to show on the cookie page, you can edit it to add more detail if you wish. Summary We hope these new tools available with Invision Community 4.2.7 make it easier for you to seek compliance with GDPR if you choose to do so. It's worth pointing out that we are awesome at making community software and know a huge amount about making communities successful, but we are not experts in EU regulation. We offer this blog entry as a way to assist you in seeking compliance but you must do your own research and are responsible for your own community. Invision Community 4.2.7 is currently in beta testing. We're aiming to release it early next week. We hope this is a good starting point for you!

Matt was recently invited onto the Community Signal Podcast, where he spoke with host Patrick O'Keefe. Everything from how Matt got started with online communities right up to the possibility of a post Facebook era was covered in their 45 minute chat. Matt also gives a little insight into how Invision Community works behind the scenes. From Community Signal: Check out the podcast now!

Despite your best efforts, is engagement a problem for your community? You have your site promotion running well and you are seeing plenty of traffic but it doesn't convert into comments, posts or reactions? Invision Community is a powerful platform that offers layers of complexity for the many sites it powers. When you are struggling to convert page views into comments, it's worth taking a step back and evaluating your site from a new user's point of view. We'll take you through our 6 best tips to simplify your site and increase engagement using built in tools. #1 Use Social Sign In with at least Facebook and Twitter enabled. Social sign in makes it easy for causal visitors to become content contributors by creating an account. Social sign in removes the complex registration form that may put some off. It's a fact that most people visiting your site will have either a Facebook account or a Twitter account. Use that to your advantage! #2 Use Profile Completion One of the biggest reasons sites fail to convert visitors into members is because of large or complex forms. If you have many required profile fields, your potential member is likely to abandon the form. Use the Profile Completion system with fewer fields where possible for a simpler registration form. The Profile Completion system allows new members to complete their profile in their own time. Of course, you can still enforce vital fields before members can contribute. #3 Use Fluid View Traditional forums can be a little daunting to site visitors used to Facebook. The top down categorisation is a strength for separating conversations. Yet, it can be confusing for a first time visitor to navigate. Fluid view breaks down these boundaries by presenting your conversations in one simple list. By removing the need to jump between forum containers, new visitors are encourage to keep diving deeper into your conversations. An engaged visitor is more likely to contribute. #4 Keep your forum structure simple Even with fluid view enabled, complex forum structures can confuse. Consider a brand new forum with a hundred different conversation areas. Would a new user know where to go and post? Would they be put off thinking they are posting in the wrong area? The best advice is always start off with as few forum containers as possible and increase them as your community grows. #5 Use Reactions One of the simplest ways to increase engagement is to turn on Reactions. Reactions allow other members to leave feedback on a post in a few clicks. The default reactions allow one to like, give thanks, express confusion, sadness or happiness. You can add your own reactions to tailor the platform to your niche and personality. Non-verbal engagement is important for your active posters. If they receive reactions to their posts, they are more likely to reply more and return often to see what feedback they have received. #6 Use the Sign In/Sign Up widget A very simple way to increase visitor to member conversion is to just ask them to register. Invision Community ships with a drag and drop widget that you can use to outline what your site is about and encourage registration. In one very simple but prominent box, you can see what the site is about and how to join in. Summary New and existing communities should take a moment to see their site through a new visitor's eyes. Consider how easy your structure is to navigate and how many barriers to registration there are. You can streamline both registration and conversation presentation with our built in tools. The key to increasing engagement is to make it a simple as possible to join your community. Make sure your barriers or entry are set low. Not using Invision Community? We can convert you from other platforms preserving your data. Our migration page has more information on the platforms we can convert you from.